Debritto, Charles Bukowski, King of The Underground (2013)

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Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground: From Obscurity to Literary Icon
By Abel Debritto
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Charles Bukowski, King of the
Underground
From Obscurity to Literary Icon
Abel Debritto
CHARLES BUKOWSKI, KING OF THE UNDERGROUND
Copyright © Abel Debritto, 2013.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-34354-3
All rights reserved.

First published in 2013 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-46576-7 ISBN 978-1-137-34355-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137343550
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Debritto, Abel.
Charles Bukowski, king of the underground : from obscurity to literary
icon / Abel Debritto.
pages cm
1. Bukowski, Charles—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Little magazines—
United States. 3. Authors and publishers—United States—History—
20th century. I. Title.
PS3552.U4Z626 2013
811!.54—dc23 2013024174
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: September 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Ona and Gara,
for giving me all there is
C on ten t s
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
List of Permissions xv
Preface for the King xvii
Introduction 1
1 “Who’s Big in the Littles” 11
2 The Insider Within 43
3 A Towering Giant with Small Feet 87
4 Stealing the Limelight 153
5 Curtain Calls 173
Appendix 181
Timeline 187
Works Cited 191
Index 207
Il lustr at ions
Graphs
1.1 Chronological timeline 15
1.2 Bibliographies and periodicals 16
1.3 Trace’s annual directory 18
1.4 Harter’s index 37
A.1 The total number of magazine titles and
magazine issues 185
Figures
1.1 Jon and Louise Webb 39
2.1 “Why Crab?” 46
2.2 “A Kind, Understanding Face” 64
3.1 “Elevator” 121
3.2 Classic drawing: Cows in pasture 123
3.3 1946 cartoon letter 124
3.4 Sparrow drawing 134
Table
A.1 Totals for magazine titles, magazine issues and
contributions 184
Ack now l ed gmen t s
Andrew Monnickendam, for believing wholeheartedly, and lighting a

candle in the darkness.
John K. Martin, for his continued support and genuine wonderment.
David Calonne, for his open-mindedness and generous commitment.
Sanford Dorbin, for his insightful, witty remarks. Gerald Locklin,
Jory Sherman, and Neeli Cherkovski for sharing so many revealing
stories from days of yore.
Jace Turner, passionate librarian and friend, Ed Fields, and David
Tambo, Department of Special Collections at the University of
California at Santa Barbara, for bearing with me.
Michael Basinski, curator of The Poetry Collection at the State
University of New York at Buffalo, for his unaffected wisdom.
John J. Martin, for having the best eye there is for catching my many
slips; Michael J. Phillips and Roni, for selflessly spreading the words
across the globe.
Mercè Diago, for not giving up on me and proofreading the text hot
off the press.
John Arnoldy, Dick Bakken, David Barker, John Bennett, Douglas
Blazek, Jim Burns, Jack Cashin, Clayton Eshleman, Al Fogel, Robert
Forrey, Howard Fredricks, Alex Hand, Christopher Harter, Sue
Hodson, Arnold Kaye, George Kimball, T. L. Kryss, Arthur Kunkin,
Carl Larsen, Anthony Linick, Clarence Major, Gerard Malanga, Ken
Margolis, Gerard Melling, Barry Miles, Harold Norse, Ron Offen,
Michael Perkins, Ben Pleasants, Charles Potts, Margaret Randall, Jean
Rikhoff, Veryl Rosenbaum, Jerome Rothenberg, Natalie Russell, Sam
Seiffer, Lee Sharkey, James Singer, Howard Sounes, Marion Stocking,
Edward Van Aelstyn, and Mel Weisburd, for their selfless involvement
and support, patiently replying to my most persistent inquiries.
Linda Bukowski, for opening up the doors of perception.
Charles Bukowski, for showing us all the way.

P er missions
Excerpt from “Cacoethes Scribendi: A Comprehensive Checklist of

Charles Bukowski’s Earliest Periodical Appearances, 1940–1969.”
(Resources for American Literary Study 35 (Nov. 2012): 267–302.)
Copyright @ 2012 AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from “Reassessing Charles Bukowski’s ‘Kenyon Review,’ After

the Sandstorm.” (The Explicator 70.4 (Dec. 2012): 326–30.)
http://www.informaworld.com
Excerpt from “A ‘Dirty Old Man’ on Stage: Charles Bukowski and

the Underground Press in the 1960s.” (English Studies 92.3 (May
2011): 309–22.)
http://www.informaworld.com
Previously unpublished material by Charles Bukowski

© Linda Lee Bukowski. The estate of Charles Bukowski.
Brief excerpt from p. 100 from Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters
1978–1994 Volume 3 by Charles Bukowski, edited by Seamus
Cooney. © 1999 by Linda Lee Bukowski. Reprinted by permission of
HarperCollins Publishers.
Brief excerpt from p. 295 from Screams from the Balcony: Selected
Letters 1960–1970 by Charles Bukowski, edited by Seamus Cooney.
© 1993 by Charles Bukowski. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins
Publishers.
“I Saw a Tramp Last Night” [12 I.] from The Continual Condition
by Charles Bukowski. © 2009 by Linda Lee Bukowski. Reprinted by
permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Excerpt of 20 I. from “The Day I Kicked a Bankroll” from The

Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946–1966 by Charles
xvi PERMISSIONS
Bukowski. © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1988 by Charles Bukowski.

Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
“Contemporary Literature, One” [43 lines] from Dangling in the

Tournefortia by Charles Bukowski. © 1981 by Charles Bukowski.
Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Photograph of Charles Bukowski by Mark Hanauer (page 171).
Cover photograph of Charles Bukowski by Till Bartels.

P r eface f or t he K ing
Henry Charles Bukowski Jr.’s nom de plume was Charles Bukowski,

and Charles Bukowski wrote a form of imaginative, richly embel-
lished, reportage about his own noir existence. Hank Chinaski, an
iconoclast poet who feverishly abused alcohol with a fierce joie de
vivre, appears as Bukowski’s avatar in his skid-row prose and poetry.
Chinaski seems to be a thinly veiled Bukowski, an outwardly uncouth,
gruff, and pedestrian writer; however, Charles Bukowski was the
persona of Henry Charles Bukowski Jr. Chinaski was a persona of
a persona. Chinaski existed in the shabby, derelict quarters of Los
Angeles or perhaps more succinctly in a faded, veneerless, and vulgar
Hollywood, but a Hollywood nevertheless. Within his Hollywood
hermitage, Chinaski surrounded himself with the denizens of LA’s
impoverished, neglected, and culturally and sociologically segregated
neighborhoods, a few outlaw poets, and assorted, sometimes sordid,
girlfriends who fortified his image as an outlandish, naïve poet and
prose author, writing the truth without restriction, without limits
and far from the ideological oversight and control of centrist, conser-
vative literary society.
Henry Charles Bukowski Jr.’s poetics and prose style derived in part
from his Romantic images of Modernist writers such as Ezra Pound
and Gertrude Stein who wrote against the more conservative tradi-
tions of 1920s and published in the little literary magazines of their era,
and Ernest Hemingway and Robinson Jeffers who projected unbend-
ing independence and exuded contrary creative forces. Smitten by the
aura of these writers and others, Bukowski blended their personality
and literary traits with the writing and attitudes of Knut Hamsun,
John Fante, James Thurber, William Saroyan, and other authors. He
also incorporated the sensibility of inferior, outsider, underlings of
the depression era as depicted in, for example, Tom Kromer’s Waiting
for Nothing and in many other frankly written-class conscious nov-
els of the 1930s. This derivative collage of inspirations, styles, and
models resulted in Henry Charles Bukowski Jr. aka Charles Bukowski
arriving in midcentury America ready to ascend the literary ladder as
xviii PREFACE FOR THE KING
a fully realized yet completely malleable author, malleable in the sense

of being able to accurately evaluate his readership and to seamlessly
respond to their desires.
Bukowski discovered there was controversy surrounding his writ-
ing. There appeared to be an insatiable audience of literary tourists
who clamored for Bukowski’s transmogrified and imaginative nar-
ratives about bottom-dog, mundane urban existence. Seizing the
opportunity, Bukowski replied and supplied more than ample creative
prose and a torrent of poetry to editors and publishers from all literary
persuasions. Bukowski’s genuine compulsion was not for alcohol or
for sex but for the all-intoxicating act of literary creation. His craving
to write included an irresistible urge for publication. As meager as the
rewards and recognitions were in the realm of the poem, Bukowski
consumed that success. There was never enough. Bukowski’s life as a
writer is as inspirational as any of Horatio Alger’s characters. Rather
than showing loyalty to life style, social class, or literary movement,
Bukowski became a self-made, self-reliant giant, a J.P. Morgan or a
Rockefeller of American fugitive prose and poetry.
Any reader engaging Bukowski forms an opinion, often emotional
or cursory. Witness all that is written earlier. To what extent Charles
Bukowski is Charles Bukowski might never be confirmed. Bukowski’s
life has become a literary industry. Already, there are a half-dozen
or more full and partial literary biographies. Bukowski’s apparently
autobiographical writing lends itself to debates driven by artistic, cul-
tural, and sociological points of view and issues. Defining Charles
Bukowski presents a perplexity. From various points of view, the liter-
ary biographies are all true and all incomplete and inaccurate. Each
facet of Bukowski’s life is open for penetration. We might imagine
that at some point we will be able to know where Bukowski purchased
the eggs he hard boiled for breakfast. Focused on the salacious, sen-
suous, and obtuse accounts of Bukowski’s daily life, the hard-boiled
eggs offer little context for the rise of the author Charles Bukowski to
his current prominent pinnacle.
Fortunately, the life, legends, and above all the writing of Charles
Bukowski has attracted Abel Debritto, a Bukowski specialist with
boundless scholarly energy and enthusiasm who has been able to dis-
tance himself from Bukowski’s daily and nightly escapades to write
Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground. Myth breaking and
focused, deliberate and factual, his book is as much about the literary
history of the 1950s and 1960s as it is about Charles Bukowski’s role
as one of its major participants.
PREFACE FOR THE KING xix
The phenomena of the post–World-War II little literary magazine

in America parallels the literary life of Charles Bukowski. The vast
majority of the little literary mimeo or offset magazines that served
as segues and passages into poetry for all contemporary poets gener-
ally remain unexplored. Debritto excavates and examines the network
of little magazines, underground presses, editors, and publishers
that supported Bukowski. The list is exhaustive and involves James
Boyer May and his Trace magazine, which served as a depot of liter-
ary magazine addresses that were used by Bukowski in his relent-
less pursuit of publication, E. V. Griffith’s Hearse magazine, Jon and
Louise Webb’s superb magazine The Outsider, Douglas Blazek’s Ole,
and Marvin Malone’s The Wormwood Review. Each of these liter-
ary magazines fortified Bukowski’s place and position as a notori-
ous poet. Bukowski’s prominence was also solidified by the new-left’s
1960s radical tabloids, such as Darlene Fife’s and Robert Head’s New
Orleans–based Nola Express. Established small presses such as John
Martin’s Black Sparrow Press and Lawrence Ferlingetti’s City Lights
published Bukowski collections and these assured him a luminescen-
cein the world of alternative publishing. Charles Bukowski, King of the
Underground is specifically about Charles Bukowski’s emergence as
a major poet in the context of his relationships with a community of
magazines, presses, and editors. That stated, any scholar fascinated
by the literary magazines, political tabloids, or the small press of the
1950s and 1960s will be served well by Debritto’s accurate research
and comment.
As much as Bukowski’s poetry and prose was a product of and
response to the alternative press, his personal aspirations were loftier.
Debritto observes that Bukowski did not avoid academic and cen-
trist literary journals, and he did relentlessly pursue publication in
magazines such as Harpers and Atlantic Monthly. Debritto correctly
asserts that any magazine would serve Bukowski’s thirst for publi-
cation. Would he have been accepted into the pages of The Kenyon
Review, a magazine often mentioned in Bukowski’s poetry, his relent-
less, solitary creative pursuits would not have been compromised. His
forms and content would not have changed. His creative drive would
not have been satisfied; it would not have subsided. Oddly, Bukowski
maintained an admiration for magazines such as The Kenyon Review
and the poems of the genteel poets he read. The polished, overly
sophisticated poems, perhaps, were as otherworldly as the classical
music that Bukowski found inspirational. While some art and maga-
zines were at times sacred, Bukowski, Debritto details, was unkind
xx PREFACE FOR THE KING
to his small press peers. He was a hostile editor while he coedited

Harlequin with his wife Barbara Fry. While he was coeditor of Laugh
Literary and Man the Humping Guns with Neeli Cherkovski (then
known as Neeli Cherry), Bukowski would offer his own, unwanted,
negative critiques, which he would scrawl on manuscripts he intended
to reject. Bukowski could, in fact, be vindictive. His disdain for
Robert Creeley did not stem from the form of poetry that Creeley
wrote or Creeley’s literary lineage as much as it did from a few short
lines of negative criticism Creeley penned and published in Poetry.
Bukowski was neither a bohemian, member of the Beat Generation,
mimeo generation, from the academic Avant-Garde nor was he a cen-
trist poet. He was in part sensitive, melodramatic, Romantic, filed
with boiling rage, and had a personality shaped and complicated by
voluminous personal and class prejudices. Bukowski was at his core
a solitary artist whose creed was creativity and only creativity. Abel
Debritto is correct casting Bukowski as an independent American
pragmatist whose single goal was to succeed as an author and who
pursued his own private raison d’état by outwriting and outpublish-
ing other poets. It was not an undertaking that he could manifest
on his own. The small press publishers of magazines and chapbooks
and the editors of his major collections, who selected and ordered
Bukowski’s books, shared his success, and they sometimes suffered
Bukowski’s diatribes against them.
Bukowski published more than 60 books over his 50-year writ-
ing career. His body of work, as Abel Debritto outlines in his study,
Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground, began to accumulate
slowly and only reached an unceasing bulk in the 1960s. Debritto
also skillfully and accurately reveals the work ethic, perseverance,
dedication, and ultimate devotion to writing that Charles Bukowski
always displayed. Bukowski had an image of himself as a committed
author whose endgame was to have his name relentlessly and repeat-
edly appear in print. He pursued his image. He succeeded. Debritto
succeeds in meticulously relating Bukowski’s publishing journey.
M ICHAEL BASINSKI
The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries
University at Buffalo
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen
(Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent)
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Ineluctable modality of the visible

—James Joyce, Ulysses
The Greeks had it best:

talking about life and death
in plain fashion
—Charles Bukowski, “Archilochos Knew How”
Introduction
Charles Bukowski was a product of the small press movement, an

unparalleled phenomenon in the so-called little magazines that pro-
liferated in the United States during the 1960s. His long journey
through the “littles” and the small presses was finally rewarded
after many a bitter battle in the back alleys of the American literary
scene. He was scorned, sneered at, and mocked by countless authors
and critics, and he was largely rejected by academic quarterlies. He
was seen as an ignorant drunk lecher who could not write poetry.
Unconcerned, imperturbable, and possessed by an unstoppable urge
to create, Bukowski, far from the madding crowd—paradoxically, in
the heart of Los Angeles—slowly edged his way through the literary
turmoil of the 1960s and emerged as one of the main iconic figures
of the period.
The little magazines were the ideal arena to satisfy Bukowski’s hun-
ger for exposure. A hyperprolific author, Bukowski indiscriminately
submitted material to all kinds of magazines, including conserva-
tive, avant-garde, and “sewing circle” periodicals. He considered the
highbrow journals as valid an outlet as any other, and not only did
he praise them in print, but he also unremittingly sent his poetry to
them throughout the years. His work, including poems, short sto-
ries, reviews, essays, manifestos, letters, blurbs, doodles, and draw-
ings, were faithfully reproduced by the little or “mimeo” editors, the
underground press, and by different literary movements, such as the
Beats, the Black Mountaineers, or the New York Schools, even though
Bukowski overtly professed no allegiance to any of them.
At first, the littles were reluctant to print his apparently outra-
geous material, but he began to be widely accepted as the “mim-
eograph revolution” took over the alternative literary scene in the
United States. By then, it was virtually impossible not to run across
Bukowski’s name in any independent periodical. His work was pub-
lished everywhere, even in obscure little magazines with very limited
circulation that came out only once, regional magazines that have
been long forgotten where Bukowski was printed alongside unknown
2 CHARLES BUKOWSKI, KING OF THE UNDERGROUND
local authors, and magazines that are not even recorded in checklists
or bibliographies.
The significance of the littles in Bukowski’s literary career remains
incomprehensibly overlooked. Yet, they constituted the most logical
outlet for his unrelenting creative process because, unlike the subsi-
dized academic journals, they allowed and encouraged experimenta-
tion and originality. The littles fearlessly promoted new authors while
the quarterlies were restricted to publishing well-established writers.
This pattern worked to Bukowski’s advantage, who bombarded the
little magazines on an almost daily basis during his lifetime. Editors
and publishers alike discovered his work in the littles and, realizing
the potential of this supposedly new voice, they contributed to his
burgeoning popularity by printing his material so frequently that he
would eventually become the most published author of the 1960s.
Reviews, interviews, his presence in controversial newspaper or
magazine issues as well as a series of unfounded statements and infa-
mous endorsements, such as an apocryphal quotation by Jean-Paul
Sartre and Jean Genet claiming that Bukowski was “the best poet in
America,” duly voiced in mainstream periodicals, also contributed,
considerably so, to enhance his reputation in American letters.
Bukowski’s prolific output can only be explained in terms of disci-
pline and perseverance. Despite constant rejection, Bukowski charged
the littles in a quixotic effort to be acknowledged. Accent would be
an extreme example. From April 1944 to August 1960—totaling 28
submissions—Bukowski sent 44 poems and 30 stories to this little
magazine. Accent accepted none of them. Interestingly enough,
Hoffman explains that Accent “attempts to avoid ‘a biased viewpoint’
and rejects what it calls the ‘stereotyped and the trivial and the unin-
telligible’ from its pages” (350). In all probability, Bukowski’s work
was discarded for the latter reason. As he confided in a 1987 inter-
view, “[T]he editors wanted the same old poetic stuff and stance and I
couldn’t, wouldn’t do it. There was nothing brave about my refusal to
write the same old tripe. It was closer to stubbornness” (Backwords,
“The World’s” 1). Indeed, that stubbornness was so persistently and
methodically cultivated that it would become one of Bukowski’s hall-
marks. His only goal was to produce new material against all odds,
as he eloquently expressed in a 1990 interview: “I like what Ezra
[Pound] said. He said, ‘Do your work.’ I mean, no matter what’s
going on, do your work. You have trouble fucking your woman, she’s
out fucking some guy—do your work. There’s a war going on or
there’s a fire in the forest or somebody took a shot at you on the street
and missed, you almost got knifed in an alley, come home, do your
INTRODUCTION 3
work” (Andrews 175). Not surprisingly, Bukowski used to compare

his compulsion to write to a disease. A most incurable one, as his mas-
sive production attests to.
When I began my research on Bukowski, the academic interest in his

work was virtually nil, and the very few articles and reviews written
from the unblemished turrets of knowledge were usually disdainful
and pejorative, if not worse. Even though Bukowski was intermittently
published in the academic quarterlies from the very beginning of his
career—The Beloit Poetry Journal in the 1950s, Northwest Review in the
1960s, Ohio Review, American Poetry Review, and Chicago Review in
the 1970s, Prism International and Antaeus in the 1980s, and Poetry,
Prairie Schooner, and Sycamore Review in the early 1990s, among
others—academia chose not to champion his work. At the other end
of the spectrum, his staunch supporters blindly praised both his virtues
and his many flaws. There seemed to be no middle ground, and critics
and biographers had deemed unnecessary to study Bukowski’s output
in an unbiased, accurate fashion. To add insult to injury, the relevance
of the little magazines and small presses in his career was conspicuous
by its absence, and biographies and bibliographies, although helpful on
many levels, were ultimately unsatisfactory. With the sole exception of
Art, Survival and So Forth. The Poetry of Charles Bukowski, by British
author Jules Smith, it was a barren wasteland, and I soon concurred
with Michael Basinski’s opinion that “the editors, publishers, small
presses and magazines that were the mainstay of Bukowski’s early career
are unrepresented in literary history. This remains an immense arena to
explore” (“His Wife” 43). I was faced with the challenge of traveling
through a winding road with no signposts pointing in the right direc-
tion. But challenges are meant to be tantalizing, and that encouraged
me to tread into uncharted territory with renewed energy.
The road taken by researchers is a lonely one and, oftentimes, they
are so worn out by the endless stops to gather information everywhere
that they want to fast-track their way to the finish line to leave behind
that part of their lives. Obvious as it may seem, the small findings or
the unexpected twists and turns on the road are much more reward-
ing than the elated feeling of actually reaching the original goal.
While I was walking through the majestic, English-like stone build-
ings of the Princeton campus, I did not know that I would find there
one of the infamous, theoretically lost, short stories that Bukowski
had handwritten in the mid-1940s, when he was an unknown author.
I did not know, either, that I would learn at the Bancroft library in
Berkeley, California, that Bukowski and Lawrence Ferlinghetti had
discussed Bukowskiana at length, a passionate and brutal volume of

stories and poems, which eventually became part of a long list of
failed Bukowski projects.
Not all the stops on the road were like finding “gold in the city
dump,” as Bukowski wrote when recalling the first time he read John
Fante at the Los Angeles Public Library (Preface 6). I had hoped to
come across unpublished short stories or letters in the New Yorker files
at the New York Public Library, but after several frantic days going
through dozens of boxes and hundreds of manuscripts, I left the city
empty-handed, not having had the chance to even see the Statue of
Liberty from afar. Although I did stroll up and down Capitol Hill in
Washington DC, I did not turn up any Bukowski-related material at
all while researching into the large Harper’s records housed in the
Thomas Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress.
On other occasions, there were awkward situations, bordering on
the absurd. At the Huntington Library, where it is not uncommon to
bump into an old man in a bow tie walking a dog through the corri-
dors, and where Bukowski is on permanent display in the Main Hall,
mischievously looking across the gallery at a life mask of William
Blake and a portrait of William Shakespeare, I was surrounded by
the best minds of my generation. Armed with gloves and magnify-
ing glasses, they were so absorbed in analyzing incunables and New
World maps, tracing invisible lines with their fingers over forgotten
places, and, holding their breath, fearfully turning the brittle pages
of illuminated manuscripts and ancient Bibles, that they did not seem
to realize that I was quickly inspecting the pages of the erotic peri-
odicals where Bukowski had published, alongside many a bushy mons
veneri, a large number of his short stories.
Another unsettling, Beckettian situation came about precisely at
the Huntington Library. Norma Almquist, an old lady nearing her
nineties who had printed a few Bukowski poems in a little magazine
in the 1960s, confided to me that she had studied with Bukowski
at Los Angeles City College in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She
told me that he always sat in the back row, frowning, never mingling
with anyone in the classroom. She also maintained that his outsider
persona was already evident as he wore an armband with a swastika,
more as a provocateur act than as a true belief in the Nazi propa-
ganda taking place before World War II. Suddenly, the 87-year-old
lady turned to me, with her face all lit up, and asked: “Do you want
to hear a funny story?” “Sure,” I replied. “I was sleeping one night
when the phone rang. It was early in the morning. I picked it up and
I heard this drunken voice saying, ‘I wanna fuck you!’ ‘Who’s this?’
INTRODUCTION 5
‘I’m Bukowski, and I wanna fuck you!’ ‘Listen, Bukowski, you got
the wrong number,’ and then I hung up on him.” The old lady, who
was clutching the latest issue of Poetry, looked at me rather impishly
and burst out laughing.
Studying manuscripts in libraries and reading everything ever
written about Bukowski was not always enough to elucidate some of
the details about the periodicals; hence I began an intense, occasion-
ally maddening, correspondence with most of the editors and pub-
lishers who championed Bukowski’s work in the 1950s and 1960s.
Their memories concerning the significance of their littles and jour-
nals both in the literary arena and in Bukowski’s growing reputation
in the underground scene were unquestionably revealing, passionate
and incisive, and seldom, if ever, clouded by the passage of time. Their
comments and views were truly insightful, allowing me to find out,
for instance, that the elusive “The Priest and the Matador” broad-
side, which biographers and bibliographers had failed to track down,
arguing it had been illegally released, had been actually printed with
Bukowski’s permission by a student with the help of a priest in the
basement of a church in Madison, Wisconsin. Similarly, editor John
Arnoldy explained to me the genesis of the 11 Bukowski drawings
that he reproduced in his little magazine in 1971, which had been
originally intended for a book of illustrations and poems to be titled
Atomic Scribblings from a Maniac Age, a rara avis in the bukowskian
canon that was thought to be destroyed in the late 1960s.
Nevertheless, all the findings and rediscoveries, all the quaint epi-
sodes, each and every one of the stops on the research road paled
beside the most unexpected of the situations: exploring the Bukowski
archives in his San Pedro home. While I looked around his old studio,
with the Mac computer, the beaten dictionary, the balcony overlook-
ing the harbor, and then while I went over the hundreds of maga-
zines yet to be catalogued and donated to the Huntington Library, the
reams of unpublished manuscripts with hand corrections by Bukowski,
the many gorgeous editions of all his books, and then, finally, while
I walked around the roomy, exquisitely designed bright lounge, with
cats in every corner, and with a view to the swimming pool and the
jacuzzi he jokingly boasted about so much, it was then when I felt that
such an unplanned stop did justify all the trials and tribulations, and
that reaching the finish line was no longer relevant or necessary.
I have deliberately kept the sociocultural and literary context to a min-

imum. Bukowski, entrenched in his small Los Angeles apartments,
lived isolated from the outer world. He was so utterly unconcerned
by current events that when he was accused of having missed the

1960s, he wryly replied: “Hell, yes, I was [working] in the post
office” (Reach 278–79). Like his hero-worshiped Robinson Jeffers in
Big Sur, Bukowski feverishly created in complete solitude; like Fyodor
Dostoevsky’s underground man, he fired off his incendiary projec-
tiles from his anonymous den, leaving readers and publishers bewil-
dered, shocked, almost terrified by that unremitting riot of words.
Bukowski, in an almost desperate attempt to be out of touch with the
Establishment, sent out his ageless missiles against the uptight liter-
ary arena, missiles that even today shake the fragile foundations of the
sacrosanct temples of higher learning. It is precisely that timelessness
that makes his work everlasting and oftentimes memorable. Putting
it into context, explaining the whys and wherefores, would strip it of
one of its most indisputable qualities.
Bukowski was born in Germany in 1920 and his family moved
to the United States when he was two years old. Flattering remarks
and backslapping were not part of Bukowski’s upbringing; the many
trips and falls and the endless hardships did build up his incorrigible,
unswerving spirit. As he admitted more than once, being physically
abused by his father as a child turned life’s misfortunes into a true
bed of roses. Nothing was to daunt him from then on. This rock-
hard stance would shape his individualistic, almost Nietzschean view
of the world. Since he was a Depression kid and older than most
emerging writers, temporary, fashionable trends such as the counter-
culture or the skin-deep Flower Power ideology did not appeal to him
and, in fact, he viciously criticized them. What Bukowski despised the
most was the egregiousness of popular groups such as the Beats, who
seemed to believe that the limelight was more important than, para-
phrasing Pound, doing their work. Bukowski secluded himself from
that brouhaha to devote himself to writing.
It was during the 1970s, when the harsh reality dealt the average
American many a severe blow after the hard-to-assimilate defeat of the
Vietnam War, and when hippies slowly awakened from their LSD and
marijuana-induced dreams to acknowledge the failure of the revolution
of the 1960s, that Bukowski appeared on the scene to successfully win
the audience’s approval with his unvarnished, all-too-direct poetry.
Although he did spiritedly exploit his clownish persona onstage with
his beer-fueled antics to make a living, he retreated back into seclusion
in the 1980s up until his final days. His stubbornness to be left alone
was also reflected in his political views; despite being usually associ-
ated with leftist movements, he always claimed to be apolitical. The
closest he ever felt to communism was when Dorothy Healey paid
INTRODUCTION 7
him a visit in 1966 and he gave her inscribed copies of his most recent
books, Cold Dogs in the Courtyard and Crucifix in a Deathhand, and
when he signed two books for Fidel Castro in April 1991. Somehow,
Bukowski defiantly and doggedly chose to sit down forevermore in
that back row that had first contributed to creating his persona as a
young man during his brief stint at Los Angeles City College.
Bukowski’s prolific output was indeed never disrupted by contem-
porary events. In fact, world affairs hardly ever made it into his work.
World War II, for instance, is mentioned only once in passing in his
second novel, Factotum, mostly set in the 1940s. The Watts riots, the
Vietnam War, the Watergate scandals, or Kennedy’s assassination are
almost conspicuous by their absence throughout his work. Those oth-
erwise crucial events did not increase nor dwindle his production. It is
as if they were invisible, even other-worldly. The death of his first true
love, Jane Cooney Baker, however, was only too real. The depression
that ensued Baker’s passing in 1962 translated into the worst year of
the decade in terms of production, submissions, and acceptance in the
small press.
Arranging as accurately as possible the bio-bibliographical information

has facilitated the task of assessing the importance of Bukowski’s peri-
odical appearances from 1940 to 1969. I have restricted the chronologi-
cal journey to his early career for two fundamental reasons. On the one
hand, the popularity achieved by the late 1960s was a consequence of the
undisputed acceptance of his work by little magazine and underground
press editors. Underground newspapers such as Open City were the
actual stepping-stones to fame, but the littles had been paving the way
for such recognition throughout almost three decades. Nevertheless,
success was relative and limited to independent circles. By early 1970,
critics expressed opposing views regarding the true scope of his status
in American letters; while his friend John Thomas claimed that he was
“still virtually unknown” (“Horatio” 31), biographer Barry Miles con-
tended that he was considered “a cult figure” (C. Bukowski 174). At any
rate, his reputation as an important author as well as his ever-growing
popularity in his late career (1970–1994) was dramatically enhanced by
the Black Sparrow Press and City Lights publications and by the release
of the movie Barfly in 1987, when he dined out with such celebrities as
Sean Penn or Madonna and gave interviews to People, Interview, and
other mainstream periodicals, while his continual contributions to little
magazines played a secondary role. Yet, had it not been for his slow jour-
ney through the little magazine scene from 1940 to 1969, he would not
have been able to subsequently attain worldwide recognition.
On the other hand, as humorously recounted in several short stories

and novels, most notably in Post Office (1971) and Factotum (1975),
Bukowski was a hard-working man during the 1940–1969 period.
Before he resigned from his job at the post office in early January
1970 to become a full-time professional writer, his periodical appear-
ances had not been profitable. In 1959, he claimed that he had earned
less than 50 dollars in 20 years; in 1965, the figure was strikingly
similar, having made roughly 80 dollars to date. By 1994, however, he
had achieved a relative financial success; as his longtime editor John
Martin put it, Bukowski’s royalties from his writing amounted to circa
$250,000 per year. As Gerald Locklin noted, Bukowski became “one
of the few poets in America to subsist on literary earnings alone” (“A
Remembrance” 4). That Bukowski had managed to solely live off his
writing during the 1970–1994 period was the outcome of his deci-
sion to become a full-time writer in late 1969, a decision that had
been possible due to the popularity and reputation that his unremit-
ting submissions to the little magazines and underground press had
brought about.
Remarkably, most, if not all, of the editors and publishers who
contributed to this early success first read his work in the little
magazines. This is a crucial yet unacknowledged fact. Literary net-
works were extremely efficient in the 1960s: if a given editor read
Bukowski in an obscure magazine and was so impressed by his work
as to solicit him to contribute to his own little, then Bukowski’s
work would appear in a new periodical that would be, in turn,
read by other editors and publishers. It was a very common phe-
nomenon during this period, and it helped considerably to spread
Bukowski’s output in the alternative publishing scene. For instance,
The Outsider, edited by Jon and Louise Webb, stands as one of the
milestone periodicals in Bukowski’s career for several reasons, one
of them being that Martin first read his poetry in that little maga-
zine in the early 1960s. Poet Harold Norse, who persuaded Penguin
editor Nikos Stangos to include Bukowski in the internationally
renowned Penguin Modern Poets Series in 1969, discovered Bukowski
in The Outsider as well. Douglas Blazek, who tirelessly championed
Bukowski’s work, publishing him in all Olé issues and assembling
a special Bukowski retrospective titled A Bukowski Sampler, also
read him in the Webbs outfit for the first time. Similarly, Robert
Head and Darlene Fife, who put out Bukowski’s “Notes of a Dirty
Old Man” columns regularly in their underground newspaper Nola
Express in the early 1970s, first came across Bukowski’s poetry in
The Outsider.
INTRODUCTION 9
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who released one of the most controversial

Bukowski books ever, Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General
Tales of Ordinary Madness (1972), discovered his work in the littles.
Taylor Hackford, who directed the first documentary about Bukowski
in 1973, simply titled Bukowski, first read him in Open City, as did
Linda Lee Beighle, his last wife, and David Barker, who wrote a memoir
and a bibliography about Bukowski in the 1980s, among many others.
Open City was a widely read underground newspaper in the late 1960s;
hence many editors, publishers, and artists first noticed Bukowski’s
unconventional prose columns in that periodical. Likewise, Blazek’s
Olé was the mimeograph magazine where most emerging editors from
that period read Bukowski’s poetry and prose for the first time. Steve
Richmond, who published him in Earth, Stance, Moxie and other little
magazines and who also wrote a memoir about Bukowski, was one of
those editors; John Bennett, who printed Bukowski’s poetry in several
Vagabond issues, even when the magazine came out in Germany in
the mid-1960s, first read him in Olé, as did Gregory Smith, editor of
Atom Mind, where Bukowski appeared in the early 1970s and 1990s.
Marvin Malone, who played a key role in Bukowski’s career by
publishing him in over a hundred Wormwood Review issues, learned
about Bukowski’s work in either Hearse or The Naked Ear. Quicksilver
was an important little magazine from the late 1950s as well. William
Corrington, a professor who promoted Bukowski’s poetry in the aca-
demic circles, first saw his poetry in that little. Jory Sherman discov-
ered Bukowski in Epos in 1959; Sherman then introduced Bukowski
to both Neeli Cherkovski, who published Bukowski in the Black
Cat Review and who wrote his first biography, and Stanley McNail,
who printed his poems in The Galley Sail Review in the early 1960s.
McNail, in turn, introduced Bukowski to Alvaro Cardona-Hine who,
years later and under the pseudonym of David Hine, published several
Bukowski short stories in “girlie” magazines such as Pix or Adam.
Interestingly, the traditional, conservative Epos was the first link of
a chain that eventually printed Bukowski’s work in those soft-core
“skin” magazines in the early 1970s. In the pre-Internet era, editorial
networks were undoubtedly efficient.
The little magazines and the underground newspapers were not only
the ideal outlet for both his indefatigable outpourings and his hun-
ger for recognition, but they also constituted the launching pad that
helped him become a major figure in American letters and the most
published author of the period. Poet Todd Moore, a longtime admirer
of Bukowski’s work, considered that his achievement was nothing
short of a feat, especially because it was solely based on Bukowski’s

literary merits: “He rose from being an absolute nobody, to becoming
an internationally famous writer in something like twenty five years.
And he did it without the benefit of a college degree, the university
buddy system, or the New York publishing mafia” (88). A chronologi-
cal review of those littles and newspapers that were turning points in
his literary career seems appropriate to illustrate their significance—in
which ways they rewarded Bukowski’s stubborn compulsion to write,
his incurable disease.
C H A P T E R 1
“Who’s Big in the Littles”
An Outsider Doing His Work

It is beyond question that small press editors and publishers were
caught up in Bukowski’s writing disease. Their littles are a testament
to that. But what exactly is meant by “littles”? Most definitions empha-
size that the littles, also known as “literary magazines,” “littlemags,”
“small press magazines,” “journals,” “big littles,” “little littles,” and
other variations, are the breeding ground for new authors. The great
majority of well-established writers started out in the littles: Faulkner,
Frost, Sandburg, Eliot, Steinbeck, Caldwell, and many others were
first published in them. Hemingway’s first story ever appeared in The
Double Dealer in 1922. Bukowski was no exception and Story: The
Magazine of the Short Story printed his first short story in 1944. Many
of these authors would eventually become famous, but their work
first appeared in the littles regularly. By definition, the littles seek
unknown talents and give voice to the voiceless.
There are conflicting views as to the value of the literature pub-
lished in the littles. Tom Montag, one of the most important authori-
ties on the littles and the small press, believes that they print “the
best new literature available” (282). Corrington, who reviewed sev-
eral Bukowski books in the 1960s, argues that they foster significant
talent, but editor Jay Robert Nash begs to differ: “The little maga-
zines . . . [publish] totally unknown writers; as a result, much of the
poetry . . . is ego-oriented” (30). By promoting unfamiliar, obscure
authors, the littles tend to be more daring than the highbrow quar-
terlies. Since they are not subsidized, experimentation by new writers
is welcome, whereas academic journals tend to print staid material
by established authors, seldom, if ever, venturing into compromising
territory. Editor-author Karl Shapiro told a revealing anecdote about
his editorial stint in Poetry : “Paul Goodman once sent me a group of
obscene poems . . . I couldn’t print these. You know, you couldn’t use
‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ in Poetry . . . back in the fifties it would have meant
the suppression of the magazine” (Anania 207). Clearly, the fear of
censorship or suspension prevented most quarterlies from publishing
experimental or offending material.
Some critics assert that academic journals not only avoided unknown
authors and new literary values, but they were also unenthusiastic
about literature. Emerging authors, then, submitted to the littles since
they were their only outlet for publication. Poet Curtis Zahn was not
mistaken when he claimed that “the Littles are perhaps the last vestige
of freedom of the press . . . The Littles—where nobody gets paid, and
advertising is not needed—have a clear field” (32). Some of the littles
were fortunate enough to print completely unknown authors who
were ultimately successful, but a large number of the names published
in the littles have been long forgotten.
Another defining feature of the littles is their limited circulation.
Since most of them were financed by young editors, budgets were
tight and the total number of copies printed per issue could be deri-
sory. However, the exact number of copies printed to qualify a maga-
zine as little is not clear: Pollak maintains that “any circulation figure
that falls in-between 200 and 2000 copies per issue” indicates the
little status of a magazine (“What” 71), while Dorbin claims that
fewer than 500 copies sufficed for a magazine to be considered little.
Nonetheless, there are exceptions to these figures. Poetry: A Magazine
of Verse, with 5,500 copies per issue, was termed the “largest little
magazine in the country” (Parishi 230). Similarly, some issues of
Evergreen Review, one of the key little magazines of the late 1950s
and the 1960s, exceeded the 100,000 figure. In the case of most
littles with a small print run, it was a standard practice to send free
copies to other magazines, which, in turn, mailed their free copies out
to other periodicals. This common pattern of exchanging issues with
one another helped increase circulation figures into the hundreds.
Given the restricted distribution of the littles, it is not surprising
to learn that their readership was also limited. In 1970, Dorbin esti-
mated that the poetry audience in the United States “consists of no
more than four thousand people . . . It is likely half of these are poets”
(“Little Mag” 17). Dorbin’s suspicions were accurate; most littles
were basically read by other editors and writers, with the occasional
teacher, librarian, and student completing the list. James Boyer May,
publisher of Trace, argued that the small circulation of the littles con-
fined them to “‘In’ groups and to liberal universities and libraries”
(24). The lack of circulation and readership is definitely one of the
intrinsic features of the littles. If they had larger press run figures and
were widely distributed, then they could not be qualified as littles.
“WHO’S BIG IN THE LITTLES” 13
Save very few cases, such as Poetry, littles remained little or they sim-
ply disappeared after a few issues.
Littles were indeed ephemeral by nature. T. S. Eliot believed
that little magazines should have “short lives” (qtd. in Anania 199),
probably meaning a year or two, a view shared by most experts in
the field. Long-lived littles are often qualified—pejoratively so—as
“institutions.” Their vitality and experimental nature tends to dwin-
dle in time, becoming middle-of-the-road and unoriginal in their
approach to literature—Poetry or Prairie Schooner are two illustri-
ous, oft-cited cases. An analysis of any little magazine checklist shows
that the vast majority of those periodicals disappear after the publi-
cation of the first or the second issue. There are notable exceptions,
as shown in the appendix. The Wormwood Review was an excellent
example of a little magazine that did not become big despite having
published almost 150 issues over a 30-year span. Bukowski was in
most Wormwood Review issues, but he also appeared in Spectroscope,
Understatement, Outcry, Mummy, and other littles that came out
once or twice only.
Lack of funds explains the ephemerality of the littles. Most of
them were in constant financial trouble, and editors had to bring
them out with their own money if they wanted to keep them afloat.
It is usually said that putting together a little is a work of labor and
love. Publishers were supposed to act as editors, typesetters, collators,
proofreaders, distributors, and even printers, and they had to do so
keeping in mind that their ventures would never be profitable. As a
matter of fact, most studies about the littles show that they seldom
broke even. Long-established small presses, such as December Press,
would suffer huge financial losses after decades of operation printing
both books and magazines. Literary magazines could not last without
financial subvention from institutions or private hands.
The Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers
(COSMEP) was launched in 1968 with the aim of helping those liter-
ary magazines with no financial resources. Other institutions, such as
the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Coordinating
Council of Literary Magazines (CCLM), included the littles in their
programs as well. However, many editors and publishers believed it
was wiser to stay away from government money. They felt that accept-
ing grants could seriously undermine the rebellious spirit of the littles.
Their main purpose, that of promoting unknown authors and new liter-
ature, would be engulfed by the Establishment they despised so much.
Bukowski himself distrusted these institutions because he felt that
they were not really helping those editors in need: “As per COSMEP I
really have some doubts as to the validity of the whole thing. There is
a tendency to backslap and honeycomb, which is weakening,” he said

to editors Darlene Fife and Robert Head (Paley, August 13, 1973). By
refusing to be subsidized, editors exalted the independent nature of the
littles and their perpetual cycle of life and death. If some little maga-
zines had to disappear due to lack of funds, many others would soon be
born, brimming with vitality and literary energy.
Indeed, the littles published during the 1940–1969 period experi-

enced a dramatic change in the mid-1960s—the so-called mimeo rev-
olution—preceded by an important surge of independent publications
in 1956–1959. This change was instrumental to Bukowski’s career as
it literally multiplied his exposure in the small press and little maga-
zine circles, apart from constituting his first major stepping stone to
popularity (see appendix, graph A1). However, Bukowski had already
appeared in the littles in the 1940s and 1950s. Discussing the literary
context where he edged his way into success is essential to fully grasp
his evolution in the alternative press.
During the 1940s and the 1950s, the American literary scene was
the realm of the highbrow quarterlies. The most prestigious journals—
Kenyon Review, Sewanee Review, or Southern Review, all of them
subsidized by universities—were strongly influenced by The New
Critics. During the late 1940s, the medieval and Renaissance cul-
tures had a powerful impact on the “Berkeley Renaissance” group. It
is not known whether Bukowski submitted to those journals, but his
unpublished correspondence and some late poems show that he was
particularly attracted to the critical articles featured in those periodi-
cals, especially in the case of the Kenyon Review.
In the early 1950s, many editors of little magazines still believed in
Modernism as a role model to be followed, and they constantly quoted
T. S. Eliot or Ezra Pound to express their views concerning publish-
ing. The Partisan Review, the Hudson Review, or Poetry were obvious
examples of magazines still entrenched in the tradition, while emerg-
ing littles such as Circle, The Ark, Goad, Inferno, Origin, and Golden
Goose were trying to break loose from those Modernist reins. Although
Bukowski submitted to both Cid Corman’s Origin and The Ark, his
work was not accepted, whereas Kenneth Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth,
Paul Goodman, William Everson, e. e. cummings, William Carlos
Williams, and Robert Duncan were all published in The Ark in 1947.
By the mid-1950s, it was evident that a huge change was imminent.
Years later, Bukowski reminisced about this period thus: “It is difficult
to say exactly when the Revolution began, but roughly I’d judge about
1955 . . . and the effect of it has reached into and over the sacred ivy
walls and even out into the streets of Man” (“Introduction” 1). Quite
possibly, Bukowski was thinking of the San Francisco Renaissance,

which, although originally conceived by Kenneth Rexroth in the
1940s, became noticeably popular in October 1955 with the Six
Gallery Reading, where Allen Ginsberg’s Howl was first read in public.
Several Beat-related events took place in the following years, preceded
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookstore opening in 1953:
Howl and the first issue of the cult magazine Semina were published
in 1956; Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Evergreen Review were pre-
miered in 1957; William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch, Beatitude, and
Big Table came out in 1959.
It was a fruitful period that heralded the literary explosion of the
mid-1960s. Kostelanetz explained that “the years 1958–9 repre-
sented the beginning of a revival in American culture . . . Some of the
potentially important new eclectic quarterlies made their debuts in
that season” (26). The first major littles from this period were Tuli
Kupferberg’s Birth (1957), John Wieners’s Measure (1957), Robert
Bly’s The Fifties (1958), Leroi Jones’s Yugen (1958), Jack Spicer’s J
(1959), John Bryan’s Renaissance (1961), and Leroi Jones and Diane
di Prima’s Floating Bear (1961). Coincidentally enough, the outcrop
of these key alternative publications took place when an increasing
number of littles began to accept and publish Bukowski’s work, as
illustrated in graphs 1.1 and 1.2.
Main periodicals, 1950–70

20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970
Graph 1.1 This graph, based on the chronological timeline designed by

Steven Clay and Rodney Phillips in A Secret Location on the Lower East Side,
displays the total number of the main periodicals published from 1950 to
1970, clearly showing an upward pattern beginning ca. 1957, which would
reach its peak in 1964–1965.
Bukowski’s periodical appearances, 1950–69

80
70
Mag. titles
60 Mag. issues
50
40
30
20
10
0
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970
Graph 1.2 This graph, based on all the Bukowski bibliographies published
to date and on several hundred periodicals located in American libraries,
displays the chronological total number of magazine titles as well as the total
number of magazine issues featuring Bukowski’s work from 1950 to 1969.
As in graph 1.1, the increase in publications becomes evident in the late
1950s.
While the Modernism-influenced journals were being displaced by

the emerging Beat publications, other literary movements were tak-
ing shape all across the United States or they unequivocally consoli-
dated their relevance on the literary scene. Such was the case, on the
one hand, of the Black Mountaineers, with Charles Olson and Robert
Creeley as their main figures, and the Objectivists—also called sec-
ond-generation Modernists—on the other, led by Louis Zukofsky
and George Oppen. Their main literary publications were the already
mentioned Origin (1951) and The Fifties (1958), as well as the Black
Mountain Review (1954), Trobar (1960), El Corno Emplumado [The
Plumed Horn] (1962), or Wild Dog (1963), among many others. The
last two periodicals featured Bukowski’s contributions several times
in the 1960s.
The creation of new schools was definitely encouraged during this
period: The Deep Image school, including authors such as Jerome
Rothenberg, David Antin, Clayton Eshleman, and Diane Wakoski,
published Some/thing, Caterpillar, or Matter and other little mag-
azines, where Bukowski’s poetry was printed. In New York, there
were several waves of the commonly called New York Schools. The
main figures of the different New York School generations were John
Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, Ron Padgett, Dick Gallup, Joe Brainard,
or Ted Berrigan, and the magazines that represented these schools
were Folder (1953), White Dove Review (1959), Fuck You (1962), “C”
(1963), or Angel Hair (1966). The late 1950s could be seen as a vol-
cano about to erupt. All those new schools, groups, and periodicals
were paving the way for a change that would release the literary scene
from the overbearing control of the academic quarterlies and the last
vestiges of Modernism.
Many critics believe that the literary revolution of the 1960s could
be compared to the one that took place at the beginning of the
twentieth century, when there was a noticeable surge of new liter-
ary magazines: The Little Review, where James Joyce’s Ulysses was
first published in installments and where the “Foreign Editor” was
none other than Ezra Pound, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, the Double
Dealer, Contact, Blast, The Dial, Anvil, or The Hound and Horn
were some of the major littles published during that period in the
United States and Europe, and they all appeared to focus on publish-
ing the best new literature available. Hence, some studies downplay
the significance of the so-called revolution of the 1960s by stating
that it was a mere repetition of an earlier, perhaps more influential,
revolution.
Whether the repetition of a previous pattern or not, the littles pub-
lished in the 1960s did outnumber the ones printed in the previous
decades. The increasing number of magazines responded to several
factors, the main ones being the low cost of new printing technolo-
gies and the fact that no special training was required to operate a
mimeograph machine. For instance, by the mid-1960s, young stu-
dents could publish a mimeographed little in a matter of days in their
parents’ garage or backyard spending as little as 50 or 75 dollars in
the process.
James Boyer May put out a most valuable directory in his Trace
magazine, which indexed most of the littles published in America and
in England on a yearly basis. The 1953 directory listed 190 maga-
zines, and the 1970 one, 665 (Brownson 387). According to May, the
1952 directory had 152 magazines, and the 1956 one, 247; by 1963,
there were 747 little magazines and small presses, and then they really
took off and proliferated in greater numbers, which eventually led to
the 665 littles listed in the 1970 directory—small presses were not
included in that figure. The outpouring of little magazines during the
1960s is evident, as graph 1.3 shows. If it is taken into account that
most littles were short-lived, the total number of magazines compiled
Trace’s total number of periodicals, 1952–70

700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972
Graph 1.3 This graph, based on Trace ’s annual directory, displays the total
number of periodicals published from 1952 to 1970. The upward pattern is
visibly similar to the one shown in graphs 1.1 and 1.2.
in the 1970 directory is simply astounding as the great majority were

probably new ventures.
Naturally, the enormous quantity of littles published during this
period did not equate with quality. Many critical voices, as early as the
mid-1960s, complained that the huge number of magazines resulted
in both mediocrity and apathy. Most mimeographed littles were simi-
lar in appearance and the printed poetry was remarkably amateurish;
indeed, very few magazines stood out. Bukowski himself criticized
the fact that most littles and mimeos often published below par mate-
rial, including his own.
The Mimeograph Revolution

The mimeograph revolution is generally considered the peak of the
literary upheaval of the 1960s. Nevertheless, as is the case when
defining “little magazines” or “small press,” “mimeo revolution” is
a misleading term. As Clay explains, “[W]ell over half the materials
produced under its banner were not strictly produced on the mimeo-
graph machine” (15). In fact, there was a substantial increase of offset
littles in the 1960s, eventually exceeding the total number of mimeos.
In addition, although it is usually said that the mimeo revolution took
place circa 1965, many editors had been publishing mimeographed
magazines for a long time. The first mimeo, Gyroscope, dates back to
1929. A milestone little from the 1940s, The Ark (1947), was also a
mimeo. J (1959) and Beatitude (1959) were equally mimeographed,

as well as Simbolica (1959), Merlin’s Magic (1961), and the Anagogic
& Paideumic Review (1961), which featured Bukowski’s work.
The mimeos were relatively easy to produce and extremely inex-
pensive. As Ed Sanders, editor of Fuck You, one of the most represen-
tative magazines of the period, recalled, “[P]rinting was affordable,
very, very affordable. For like $10 you could publish a poetry maga-
zine and give it out or sell it at your poetry readings” (L. Smith,
“Remembering” 119). According to other editors, such as Douglas
Blazek, the cost could be anywhere between 75 and 125 dollars. At
any rate, the production cost of the mimeos was more than reason-
able to most poets and editors; financial concerns no longer prevented
them from becoming publishers, which contributed considerably to
the proliferation of these periodicals.
Another feature of the mimeos, and one that especially delighted
Bukowski, was its sense of immediacy. Although quality was not
always taken into account, speed played a fundamental role in assem-
bling mimeos. Since operating a mimeograph did not require techni-
cal skills, flyers or broadsides could be completed in an hour, and a
chapbook could take a day at the very most. Bukowski was usually
harsh on most editors, but he did praise those who were quick to print
his work, such as Evelyn Thorne and Will Tullos (Epos) or Roy Miller
and George Hitchcock (San Francisco Review). For this reason, he was
pleased with the mimeo editors, as he would be with John Bryan and
his underground newspaper, Open City : “I like ACTION. I mean,
you know how some of the mags move, something very deadening
about it . . . that’s one reason I have been writing a column a week for
Open City— so far. ACTION,” Bukowski explained to Charles Potts
in 1968 (Poems Written 38). In all likelihood, this process reminded
Bukowski of the mimeograph revolution, when his work was imme-
diately published upon reception.
Although Cherkovski—somewhat romantically—argues that “the
poor paper stocks the editors used and the careless printing jobs were
statements of their disdain for established journals” (158), it was
quite possible that the mimeograph editors simply put the immediate,
affordable nature of the mimeos before any other consideration. That
mimeos were clumsily produced did not mean that their editors were
criticizing the so-called slick journals. The “disdain” that Cherkovski
mentions could be taken as a consequence of the means involved in
putting together a mimeographed magazine, but hardly as a raison
d’etre. As Bukowski suggests: “The ‘Mimeo’ Revolution is sometimes
more revolting than revolutionary—printing hasty faded careless and
misspelled poems and stories. Yet I do suppose that the very lack of
pressure and expense does create a freedom from which arises some
good hotbed literature” (“Who’s Big” 9; emphasis in the original).
Rather than giving shape to well-crafted artifacts, perhaps the main
motivation of the editors was distributing art diligently.
d. a. levy did disdain the established journals, though, and he made
it abundantly clear in his work. All studies cite levy as the central fig-
ure of the mimeo revolution, as “one of the truly unique and authen-
tic spirits” of the movement (Clay 48). Besides his several publishing
ventures—where Bukowski’s work was featured—levy’s main contri-
bution was his unshakeable effort to establish a well-connected circle
of editors willing to circulate, as always, the best new literature avail-
able. levy, who defined himself as a “poeteditorpublisher,” soon set
up, without institutional or corporate support, an efficient editorial
network with Morris Edelson (Quixote), Douglas Blazek (Olé ), and
D. R. Wagner (Runcible Spoon, Moonstones). Incidentally, all of those
mimeos published Bukowski. Some editors, such as D. R. Wagner or
Morris Edelson, printed his poems more than once in different maga-
zines; in Blazek’s case, he published Bukowski in all Olé issues. Taking
into account that “Blazek emerged as the editor of the ‘mimeo revolu-
tion’ . . . [And] Olé attained legendary proportions” (Mangelsdorf 36;
emphasis in the original), the fact that Bukowski became increasingly
popular makes perfect sense.
Blazek, levy, Wagner, and Edelson were not the only mimeo editors
to champion Bukowski. The Marrahwannah Quarterly, Olé, Runcible
Spoon, Kauri, Intrepid, Magazine, Poetry Newsletter, Grande Ronde
Review, Litmus, Blitz , Salted Feathers, Wild Dog, Aspects, Floating
Bear, Poetry Review, and Fuck You are usually listed as the most rep-
resentative magazines of the period. All of them, save the last four
titles, showcased Bukowski’s work in their pages. Although some
critics claim that Bukowski was published in Ed Sanders’s Fuck You,
Bukowski did not even send his poetry to that magazine. However,
he fruitlessly tried to get published in Diane di Prima’s Floating Bear
in 1966. In any case, it is evident that those editors appreciated his
work, almost reverently so, and their magazines unequivocally con-
tributed to turn him into a well-known figure in the alternative liter-
ary scene.
Likewise, critics almost unanimously began to champion Bukowski
as the new major author of the American underground. Jay Robert
Nash, editor of Chicago’s Literary Times, was especially eloquent in
this regard: “Not since . . . the 20’s has one man startled and shocked
the ‘Little Mag’ public into the fervent huzzahs now accorded Charles
Bukowski” (30). Bukowski had laboriously fought his way through

the littles since the mid-1950s. It had taken him almost a decade
of continued appearances in alternative periodicals for his work to
finally win critical acclaim.
Underground Newspapers
While it is true that the mimeograph revolution helped publish his
work generously, and hailed Bukowski as one of the best authors of
the movement, the mimeos were as restricted as the littles. Despite
their attempts to promote Bukowski and other writers via the network
of independent editors, the audience was painfully limited. Most edi-
tors were students or hardworking young men and, inexpensive as
it was to produce mimeographed magazines, they could not afford
to print them on a regular basis. Mimeo editors extolled Bukowski’s
work, but their efforts did not make him any wealthier or internation-
ally famous. However, underground newspapers did precisely that.
Paul Krassner’s The Realist (1958) could be considered the first
underground newspaper, but Arthur Kunkin’s Los Angeles Free Press
(1964) was the first one to be published steadily for a long period
of time. Walter Bowart’s East Village Other (EVO), Max Scherr’s
Berkeley Barb, the Seed, and the Oracle all surfaced during the fol-
lowing years. Interestingly, the sudden surge of underground news-
papers in the mid-1960s ran parallel to the inception of countless
littles across the United States. While most of the littles published
Bukowski’s poetry almost exclusively, the underground newspapers
had little time for metaphors and synecdoches. They were delighted
to print his stark and straightforward “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”
prose columns: “His fiction took its place alongside coverage of stu-
dent unrest, the New Left, black power, civic and police corruption,
draft resistance, drug information and adverts to sexual contacts and
services,” J. Smith accurately noted (“Avant-Garde” 56).
Underground newspapers were indeed a product of the times; basi-
cally, they were all created to protest against the current sociopolitical
affairs. On the one hand, their goal was to report to a large audience
the many errors of the current administration, especially those asso-
ciated with the Vietnam War. As editor John Wilcock put it, “[T]he
press should be an organizing tool for ‘the revolution’ rather than
merely a vehicle for information” (qtd. in Peck 187). On the other
hand, they also wanted to express their diverging views from main-
stream culture; EVO implemented this goal by unabashedly attacking
the establishment on artistic grounds.
The large circulation figures helped—considerably so—to spread

their ideology. Even though the term “underground press” might
suggest otherwise, the truth is that those newspapers were not
covert publications, and they reached a relatively large audience. For
instance, by October 1966, when Timothy Leary was a columnist for
the newspaper, the East Village Other sold fifteen thousand copies per
issue. By 1969, “five hundred or so papers distributed anywhere from
2 million copies (Newsweek’s estimate) to 4.5 million copies (UPS)
to radicals, hippies, racial minorities, soldiers and curiosity-seekers”
(Peck 183). Even Newsweek’s lowest estimate probably exceeded the
circulation figure of all the littles published in the 1960s. A large
number of underground newspapers printed Bukowski’s fiction in the
late 1960s, and by then his exposure was significant.
Some of the underground newspapers launched in 1968–1969
had a different audience in mind. Screw, The New York Review of
Sex and Politics, Kiss, and Pleasure —all of them from New York—
constituted “an astonishing quartet of erotic newspapers” (Black 27).
“Erotic newspaper” is a misnomer or an euphemism of sorts; even if
the New York Review of Sex and Politics was “unbearably pretentious”
(28), the very graphic nature of the material published as well as the
explicit photographs printed in those newspapers turned them into
pornographic newspapers or “sex papers,” as they were commonly
called. Coincidentally enough, Bukowski began to produce short sto-
ries with strong sexual content in great quantities in early 1969, and
the New York sex papers were the ideal outlet for those new works
of fiction. Even though he was paid 25 dollars only for each of the
stories published in the New York Review of Sex and Politics, the cir-
culation of those New York newspapers was outstanding since most of
them sold at least thirty thousand copies per issue. Again, Bukowski
received more exposure by being published in those newspapers than
in any of the littles.
Likewise, the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) contrib-
uted to promote Bukowski’s work. UPS members were allowed to
freely reprint the material previously published in any other under-
ground newspaper affiliated to the UPS. There were many instances
of Bukowski’s fiction being recycled in UPS-affiliated newspapers;
Satyrday, Frendz , and Real Free Press were relevant cases because they
reprinted Bukowski’s “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” columns in Canada,
England, and the Netherlands, respectively. It was evident that, by the
late 1960s, the scope of Bukowski’s recognition was a phenomenon
no longer restricted to the United States. He had become a cult figure
in the American underground, and other countries were beginning
to appreciate and distribute his literary output as well.
Despite the exposure received in the literary magazines that flour-

ished during the 1950s and exploded into the revolution of the 1960s,
despite his work having been generously distributed via the network
of mimeo editors, despite the huge audience gained thanks to the
underground newspapers, the “sex papers,” and the UPS channels,
Bukowski professed no allegiance to any of these movements or any
other schools. Bukowski saw himself as a literary outsider who took
Ezra Pound’s “do your work” principle literally; the littles, newspa-
pers, mimeos, and small presses were outlets for his prolific output,
and he indiscriminately submitted to all of them. It is wrong to assume
that he felt closer to leftist, iconoclastic, or dissenting ventures because
he also submitted to right-wing or conservative publications and aca-
demic journals. Not surprisingly, representatives of all schools, groups,
and trends accepted and extensively published his literary production.
For instance, although his name was appropriated by Beat-oriented
publications such as Beatitude (1960) or The Outsider (1961), or by
littles that supported well-established writers—The San Francisco
Review (1958)—and even though a few critics claimed that “Bukowski
is the most beat of all beats, the apotheosis of Beatnikism” (Fox, A
Critical 10), it would be difficult to prove that Bukowski was a Beat,
a confessional, or a staunch supporter of the counterculture ideology.
At the risk of repetition, Bukowski was indeed an outsider who was
not interested in schools of any kind. As Al Purdy, a Canadian poet
who extensively corresponded with Bukowski in the 1960s, put it,
“[Bukowski] bears little relation to the snug coteries of Olsen-Duncan-
Creeley, and even less to such academic pilchards as Richard Wilbur
and Robert Lowell” (137). Poet Jack Conroy, editor of the legendary
Anvil magazine, was even more categorical than Purdy: “[Bukowski]
cannot be classified or yoked with any other poet, living or dead” (5).
Yet, as most biographies and studies point out, Bukowski’s attitude,
by his own admission, resembled that of Robinson Jeffers, one of the
very few contemporary authors that he ever praised in print.
Bukowski himself expressed on several occasions his dislike of
any literary group or school: “To me, the entire poetic scene seems
dominated by obvious and soulless and ridiculous and lonely jack-
asses. from the university group at the one end to the beat mob at
the other . . . they go from creators to being entertainers” (Perkins,
“Angry” 16–17). Bukowski was merciless in his criticism, and no
group was spared: “Those Black Mountain School snobs, let them
smell their own turds! The Kenyon boys, let them write their celluloid
senseless inoffensive poems” (Living 58). However, Bukowski’s com-
ments should not be taken literally. He did enjoy the critical articles
published in the Kenyon Review and he wrote several poems where he
praised them, such as “Kenyon Review, After the Sandstorm.” In fact,

Bukowski admired some of the big littles and he even contended that
those periodicals were better than most littles.
Literary Magazines: “A Living and

Electric Literature”
Bukowski and the littles had a stormy, mutually rewarding love/hate
relationship. He criticized them unrelentingly and yet, he needed them
as the ideal arena for his staggering literary output. One of the main
functions of the littles as an outlet was that of satisfying Bukowski’s
voracious need to be published. Several of the editors who released his
work in the early 1960s recall that urge to appear in print. Edward
Van Aelstyn, who edited the Northwest Review before it was tempo-
rarily suppressed in 1964, stressed that he was “amazed and amused
at how passionate he was, and how eager he was to make contact
with anyone who would appreciate his work” (“N. R. / Bukowski”).
George Kimball, who coedited Grist magazine with John Fowler and
Charles Plymell in the mid-1960s, reminisced that Bukowski “was
writing pretty much daily, making up for lost time, as it were, and had
a pretty substantial backlog of material and was always looking for
new exposure in magazines he found to his liking” (Kimball).
Biographer Howard Sounes claimed that Judson Crews—a prolific
author and editor himself—had explained to him that Bukowski’s
obsession to achieve literary recognition could reach suicidal heights:
“[Bukowski] wrote to me and said to please publish his poems, else
he was going to commit suicide” (qtd. in Sounes, Locked 36). When
asked about this particular exchange, Sounes replied that “I haven’t
got the [suicide] letter . . . My source was Judson Crews himself,
who no longer had the letter either” (“More Buk”). It is not known
whether Bukowski actually wrote that missive to Crews or not, but
Bukowski submitted frequently to him in the early to mid-1950s, and
in 1953 he told Crews: “I’ll be honest with you. You might as well
keep those poems as long as you want to because when you send them
back I’ll throw them away” (Ransom, November 4, 1953). Although
this might be taken as a means of putting pressure on Crews to pub-
lish those poems, and also as an unintended tribute to his beloved
Li Po, who burned his own poetry and sailed it down the river, the
suicidal tone is conspicuous by its absence. In any case, Bukowski’s
perseverance was eventually rewarded when Crews published one of
his short poems in the Naked Ear in late 1957.
During the 1950s, Bukowski was painfully aware of the crucial

fact that only the littles would publish his work steadily. He had been
previously—and constantly—rejected by mainstream magazines in
the 1940s such as the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, or
Esquire. Bukowski knew that the littles championed new authors and
fearlessly printed radical, obscene, or controversial material. In a 1966
essay about the littles of the time, Bukowski argued that “many of
us . . . continue to submit and get published in the best of the ‘littles’
because they are the only remaining platforms of truth and good art
in a very frightened and sick Age” (“Who’s Big” 9). Bukowski did not
want to conform to the strict rules, principles, and guidelines of the
quarterlies; his goal, if any, was to remain faithful to his own liter-
ary instincts, and the littles were, again, the most appropriate outlet.
Indeed, as Freedland concluded in an erotic periodical, “Buk is little
known outside of the most gung-ho literary set because he insists
on giving all his work away to the ‘little magazines’ of the avant-
garde” (94). Years later, when Black Sparrow Press regularly published
Bukowski, he received several offers from important New York pub-
lishing houses. However, he chose to remain loyal to the small press
and declined all those financially tempting offers.
By defining himself out of those major publishers, Bukowski
focused all his efforts on the littles. He submitted his work—mostly
poetry, although occasionally fiction as well—to any literary maga-
zine. The directory published in J. B. May’s Trace was especially useful
to Bukowski as it listed hundreds of new periodicals each year. Since
Bukowski had made it abundantly clear that he did not care about
schools, groups, or literary movements, he indiscriminately tried most
of the newly listed littles in Trace’s directory, even the ones he criti-
cized harshly. He submitted to littles favoring traditional verse such as
Simbolica, Flame, Scimitar and Song, Epos, and Descant, among many
others. The poem printed in Flame was an unusual rhyming artifact, or
a “rhymer,” as Bukowski mockingly called them—he published at least
another two rhymers during this period, “The Editors Say” (Harlequin,
1957), and “Rhyming Poem” (Wormwood Review, 1963).
One of the poems that appeared in Descant was so unbukowskian
that a longtime Bukowski collector thought it was a misattribution:
[T]hen the kelp, bitumen, alabaster, seashells

held court, and then came the shadows,
dark as walls under a dying sun: and bellicose and
vicious the sea pounded the sinking ships. (“Export” 26)
Likewise, Bukowski stated in several letters that most of the poems

published in Epos were too “poetic” or “fancy,” while the work
printed in Simbolica and Scimitar and Song seemed to be written
by nineteenth-century authors. However, in spite of the traditional
nature of these magazines, the hunger for recognition was definitely
stronger than any other consideration.
Similarly, Bukowski tried well-established magazines or academic
journals such as Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, The Fiddlehead, Kenyon
Review, Esquire, Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker,
Evergreen Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, or Impetus. Although he was
not particularly successful with this group of magazines, he submit-
ted to them on several occasions. Bukowski also sent poetry to Beat
publications (Beatitude, The Ark), experimental littles (Semina), early
mimeographed periodicals (Anagogic & Paideumic Review, Merlin’s
Magic), racehorse ventures (American Turf Monthly), or magazines
distributed in barbershops only (Dare). He also submitted to little
littles such as the Naked Ear, and others so rare that they are not
listed in any checklist, directory, or online resource: Maestro Insana’s
Review, Aristotle’s Animals, Le Petit Sphinx, Wheel, or Aquarius, to
mention only a few.
Bukowski’s relentless literary bombardment was finally rewarded.
In the early 1960s the huge network of independent editors across
the United States began to widely publish him as a “new” voice on
the literary scene. As Miles explains, “[T]he same names of contribu-
tors occurred time and again [in the littles], but none so frequently
as Charles Bukowski” (C. Bukowski 1). Poet and friend John Thomas
interviewed Bukowski in 1967 for the Los Angeles Free Press ; Thomas
was aware that the burgeoning Bukowski cult had its roots deeply
entrenched in the littles and the small press: “For years, nearly every
little poetry magazine on the rack has had some of Bukowski’s work
on exhibit. He’s in the good ones, he’s in the asswipers, he’s in those
sad little one-shot collections from the bleakest corners of Scribbler’s
Limbo” (“This Floundering” 12). Bukowski’s presence in the littles
had become an undeniable—almost too persistent—reality.
From the 5 publications in 1957 to the 42 issues featuring his
work in 1969, reaching a peak of 74 periodical appearances in 1968,
Bukowski was in 266 magazine titles in this period, totaling 447
magazine issues and 762 poetry and prose contributions. Critics were
indeed surprised, even aghast, at the number of editors willing to
publish Bukowski: “Since he began chopping out poetry at age 35, he
has appeared in every important ‘little’ from one coast to the other,”
and “he is, indeed, almost ubiquitous in that select circle of ephemeral
but important, off-set, hand-set, and nowadays mimeographed, avant

garde journals” (Katz; Taylor, “Introducing” 16). These and many
other examples point out in the same direction: Bukowski is generally
cited as the most widely published poet in the American alternative
literary scene. He was, critics concluded, the little magazine and small
press poet par excellence.
Although Bukowski is usually tagged as a poet, “author” would
be a more accurate term. His poetry was unflaggingly promoted, but
his short stories, letters, drawings, and essays were printed as well.
Targets, Kauri, Intrepid, El Corno Emplumado, Olé, Intermission,
Understatement, Renaissance, or Down Here published Bukowski’s
letters in their main pages. Editor Michael Perkins liked his corre-
spondence so much that he put out a lengthy selection—30 pages—of
the Charles Bukowski/Tom McNamara letters in Down Here. Some
magazines, such as Coastlines or The Outsider, ran excerpts from his
letters in the Contributors’ Notes section in place of the customary
biographical note. His letters were also used as short biographies
in some of his early chapbooks, as introductions to other authors’
books, and as stand-alone essays. Furthermore, many editors noticed
the increasing presence of his correspondence in the littles, and they
proceeded to pen parodies of his epistolary style, such as Felix Pollak’s
“A Letter from Chuck Buck,” or Phyllis Onstott Arone’s “Life Is a
Handkerchief Full of Snot, By Quarrels Bubullski.”
That little magazine editors published Bukowski extensively and
championed his work tirelessly drew skepticism and harsh criticism on
occasion. Quantity did not always equate with quality in Bukowski’s
case. “Doubtless the most valid criticism of Bukowski is that he has
published too much, i.e too much bad stuff” (Dorbin, “The Little
Mag” 25; emphasis in the original). J. Smith maintains that his
gigantic output “contain[s] much dross” (Art 15). Other critics have
accused Bukowski of being a mere typist, hence his massive, monoto-
nous, coarse, nonliterary production. Not surprisingly, his work has
earned him the dubious distinction of “America’s sewer Shakespeare”
(Edelson 3), or such unflattering depictions as “sloppy Narcissus,”
“lazy bum with intellectual flair,” or “poet laureate of sleaze” (qtd. in
Freyermuth 22). It goes without saying that it was not mandatory for
editors to publish Bukowski’s mediocre material; he wrote countless
below-average poems and stories, and any sensible editor would not
have printed them.
However, editors were aware of Bukowski’s growing popularity
in the underground literary scene, and they rightly surmised that
their magazines could benefit from publishing him—even his subpar
poetry or fiction. As Grist coeditor reminisced, “[H]is name already

carried a certain cachet in what was essentially still a pretty small
club, so it was good for us [to] publish him” (Kimball). This pattern
could reach absurd heights: the editor of Entrails magazine printed
the second page of a poem believing it to be complete, even though
it clearly made no sense, and the same excised version was reprinted
a year later in an anthology. No one seemed to notice. Bukowski’s
apparently unselfish attitude could be easily glorified: “[Bukowski]
helped countless little magazine editors to keep their shoestring oper-
ations afloat, as an act of contribution to the profession and service to
the community” (Saunders). It is highly unlikely that Bukowski ever
wanted to help the “profession” or the “community” deliberately. He
did not object to editors taking advantage of his popularity, but he
definitely did not intend to help their littles when he submitted to
them. He simply needed an outlet, and magazines required imme-
diate funds in order to survive. It was indeed a mutually rewarding
relationship.
Tender Mercies
Since Bukowski appeared in so many periodicals, profits could be
expected. Nevertheless, as publishing a little magazine brought
about a financial loss by definition, the only payment most authors
ever received were their contributor’s copies. As Bukowski somehow
humorously put it in a letter to J. B. May: “I’ve earned 47$ in 20 years
of writing, and I think that’s 2$ a year (omitting stamps, paper, enve-
lopes, ribbons, divorces and typewriters)” (Fullerton, December 13,
1959). In 1965, Bukowski mentioned similar figures: “I’ve only
been writing poetry since I was 35 . . . I’ve made around $80 writing”
(Screams 175). It is evident, then, that being published in the littles
was not lucrative. Nevertheless, Bukowski was paid larger amounts in
the late 1960s, especially for his contributions to the underground
newspapers. He received 10 dollars for each of the columns published
in Open City, most “sex papers” paid him 25 dollars per short story,
and the so-called girlie or skin magazines sent him a 200- or 300-
dollar check for each short story. Those were not substantial amounts,
but to Bukowski they were infinitely larger than the nonpayment
from most littles.
Even though Bukowski knew that the littles would not make him
any wealthier, he was perfectly aware that they were the most logi-
cal outlet for his massive production, and he was grateful to them
for having contributed to make his voice popular in the alternative
literary circles. Yet, his assessment of the littles published during the
late 1950s and the 1960s was—save very few cases—outright vitri-
olic. The following tirade, published in 1963, sums up his view on
the subject:
[Literary magazines] are a scurvy lot, most of them, run by homo-

sexuals, madmen, posers, people with acne, fast-buckers, snivelers, reli-
gious old ladies, whippers of hounds and so forth. Mail out a selection
of poetry and chances are:
a. you won’t get it back.
b. you’ll get it back with a promise of publication but it will never
be published.
c. your work will be returned, after some years, without either a
rejection slip or a note.
d. they will think you a genius and they will come to your door to
look at you and drink your beer and talk.
e. you will get semi-literary letters from divorced ladies with chil-
dren or from ladies with various maladies such as:
1. missing leg.
2. overfat butt.
3. a love for Henry James.
4. a stock of old poems about the sea and the moon. (“Untitled
Contribution” 43)
The very few littles that Bukowski ever praised were those that stressed
immediacy and printed his work in record time. Most of the remain-
ing ones were the target of his wrath. He was particularly vexed at
the apparent sloppiness of many editors. He could not understand
why it took some of them months or years to reply— if they replied—
to his inquiries. As Bukowski told editor Jon Webb, “[I]n 1956 I
sent Experiment a handful of poems that (which) they accepted, and
now 5 years later they tell me they are going to publish one of them,
which is delayed reaction if I ever saw any” (McCormick, Outsider).
Similarly, In/Sert and Olivant were extremely slow to publish him
or they simply kept his work and did not print it, without a single
note of explanation. This was a common pattern in this period since
Bukowski complained about it with resignation: “There is an immense
lag in some cases between acceptance and publication,” causing him
to believe that he was “writing into a void” (Screams 11). In some
extreme instances, that long delay was followed by a return of mate-
rial already accepted for publication, as both Folder and Existaria did
in the late 1950s. This practice especially infuriated Bukowski, as the
unpublished correspondence from the period reveals. Interestingly,
he committed the same editorial sin—that of returning previously

accepted poetry—when he coedited Harlequin in 1957.
Bukowski’s stance remained virtually unchanged throughout his
career. He professed no love for the hastily produced periodicals that
zealously published him. He complained to J. B. May that “the littles
are an irresponsible bunch guided by young men . . . starting with fiery
ideals and large ideas . . . and finally putting out a tacked-together,
hacked-together poor selection of typographically botched poems
before getting married and disappearing from the scene” (Fullerton,
January 2, 1960). A decade later, Bukowski claimed that the littles
from the 1950s were “a much finer stomping ground” than the con-
temporary literary magazines because they had become “a dumping
ground of very poor literature and poetry” (“Dirty” 76). In 1973,
in a rather predictable volte-face, Bukowski compared the littles of
the 1970s to their predecessors, although he chose to praise the ones
from the beginning of the century instead of those from the 1950s,
denoting his preference for the littles from any period to the current
ones, as if he were completely disenchanted with the magazines he
was submitting to at the time. Almost two decades later, his view was
the same; most periodicals were “just sheets of paper run off a mimeo
machine and stapled together,” and some of them did not even have a
cover (Reach 208). Indeed, the situation worsened considerably dur-
ing the xerox revolution of the 1990s because photocopying allowed
most editors to produce magazines in an inexpensive and immediate
fashion.
Bukowski did realize that some littles were relevant as their contri-
bution to the literary magazine revolution of the 1960s was dispro-
portionately larger than the insignificant role of a myriad littles that
had been long forgotten. Bukowski overtly expressed his preferences
in a 1966 essay: “I’d have to place them this way: 1. Ole; 2. Wormwood
Review; 3. The Outsider . . . All three mentioned magazines print a liv-
ing and electric literature” (“Who’s Big” 9). This choice upset Jon
Webb, The Outsider editor, who could not understand why Bukowski
had not listed The Outsider first. Seven years later, he praised Olé and
Wormwood Review again—although The Outsider was conspicuous
by its absence: “I would suggest, along with Wormwood, as decent
arenas: The New York Quarterly, Event, Second Aeon, Joe Dimaggio,
Second Coming, The Little Magazine and Hearse” (“Upon” 17). All
these magazines, save the British little Joe Dimaggio, had published
Bukowski by then.
The significance of the Wormwood Review in Bukowski’s slow
rise in the underground literary scene is capital. Marvin Malone
published Bukowski in almost every Wormwood Review issue from

1962 onward, and Bukowski always mentioned the magazine as one
of the best littles ever. In this particular case, there was no stormy
love/hate relationship. Although Bukowski could be mean when
assessing most littles, he was unusually appreciative whenever the
Wormwood Review was involved. As he confided to Malone in 1970:
“I would place Wormwood on top along with the old Story magazine,
The Outsider, Accent, Decade, as a very definite force in the moulding
of a lively and meaningful literature” (M. Malone, “Unpublished”
April 4, 1970). In a letter dated July 25, 1968, to Steve Richmond,
he praised the Wormwood Review yet again, claiming that Malone’s
periodical was an exception to the mediocrity of most littles. The
few littles that Bukowski applauded repeatedly—The Outsider, the
Wormwood Review, and Olé —were the ones that actually made a dif-
ference in his literary career in the long run.
Needless to say, Bukowski’s contempt and disenchantment was not
restricted to the littles. He was especially merciless with the academic
quarterlies. However, his literary appraisals should be read with much
caution as he was known to change his mind frequently. In a 1959
letter to J. B. May he praised a magazine he condemned years later:
“Trace has long impressed me as the only gathering ground for those
of us camping outside the oligarchy of university wall” (Fullerton,
August 1959). But in 1966 he argued that “snob publications that
print an icy and glass-spun, unreal type of work are Evergreen Review,
Poetry, Trace, The Sewanee Review, The Kenyon Review, Contact, The
Antioch Review” (“Who’s Big” 9). Trace was no longer a laudable
journal. The fact that his work had been rejected by at least four of
these periodicals might account for his disdainful tone.
To further complicate matters, in a letter to editor Anthony Linick,
who published him in Nomad, Bukowski listed a group of apparently
respectable magazines: “The little magazines are aptly named, and I
would add the people that run them. There are exceptions . . . Accent,
Approach, Coastlines, Epos, Flame, The Galley Sail Review, The Kenyon
Review, The Naked Ear, Odyssey, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Q. Review
of Lit., Kansas City Review, Quicksilver, Quixote, San Francisco
Review, Sewanee Review” (Linick, “Unpublished” January 29, 1960).
By 1966, though, both Poetry and The Kenyon Review were no longer
exceptions since they had become “snob” periodicals. Similarly, he
harshly criticized Flame, Quicksilver and the Galley Sail Review in his
correspondence in the early 1960s.
Nevertheless, Bukowski not always contradicted himself or
changed his mind depending on whether he had been rejected by a
magazine or not. More than three decades later, he still considered

Prairie Schooner a good academic journal, and he expressed as much
to editor Matthew Miller: “I’ve long had a sentimental journey to
appear in Prarie Schooner. Your journal has been around quite some
time. I remember it as a young man and I am hardly a young man
anymore . . . It seemed great to me that I would finally appear with
you after all these decades” (M. Miller, August 1, 1992). The summer
1994 issue of Prairie Schooner featured Bukowski’s “The Laughing
Heart” on the front cover of the magazine against a blue background.
Poetry also published him in 1993–1994, and he praised the journal
in his correspondence with editor Joseph Parishi.
That Bukowski mentioned those periodicals in complimentary
terms is noteworthy. Most studies claim that Bukowski despised them
while championing the littles, but empirical evidence—Bukowski sub-
mitted to the quarterlies on a regular basis and his work was occasion-
ally accepted by them—and Bukowski’s own statements show that,
in any case, he clearly favored mainstream journals: “Basically, like
it or not, the large slick magazines print a much higher level of work
than the littles” (“Upon” 16). Bukowski also preferred the quarter-
lies to the littles because they were more efficient, as he remarked
to Lawrence Ferlinghetti: “Frankly, the littles are more disgusting
than the bigs, because even they both publish SHIT, at least the bigs
conduct themselves in a business-manner. And by a business-manner,
I mean something about MOTION, about the CALENDAR, about
getting it DONE” (Bancroft, September 16, 1969). Years later, his
view remained unchanged: “The little mags print about 15% of mate-
rial that is fair writing; the larger mags, perhaps 20” (“Smoke Signals”
6). He was evidently dissatisfied with both literary vehicles, but the
littles came off worst in his assessment.
The underground press was not spared. Bukowski was aware of
the substantial circulation figures of most underground newspapers
and he knew that his work would reach a larger audience than via the
littles and, yet, he harshly attacked them and criticized their so-called
revolutionary spirit—many editors saw newspapers as tools for the
revolution and not as mere news outfits. However, it did not escape
Bukowski that, by 1969, the vast majority of those alternative news-
papers carried too many sex advertisements in order to generate sub-
stantial profits. To many, including Bukowski, this was a betrayal of
the ideology that first launched the underground press.
In a revealing interview to British London Magazine conducted
in 1975, when most underground newspapers had already disap-
peared—although Bukowski was contributing a weekly column to
the Los Angeles Free Press at the time—he talked at length about this
subject:
They’ve [underground newspapers] turned into business, and the real

revolutionaries were never there. The underground press was just lonely
people who wanted to get around and talk to each other while putting
out a newspaper. They went left and liberal, because it was the young
and proper thing to do; but they weren’t really interested in it. Those
newspapers were kind of a lark. They were a sign to carry around, like
wearing a certain type of clothing. I can’t think of one underground
newspaper that meant anything, shook anybody. (Wennersten 48)
In a 1973 letter to Darlene Fife, coeditor of Nola Express, he further

accused them of indolence, romanticism, and inefficiency. Bukowski’s
assessments were contradictory—and probably unfair—as he had spo-
ken highly of Nola Express in 1970, when he appeared in most issues
of that newspaper. By 1975, however, the L.A. Freep was publishing
his weekly columns, and Nola Express was no longer praiseworthy.
The Urge to Write

That Bukowski was the most published author of the 1960s can only
be explained in terms of his prolific output. Bukowski, who seldom
experienced writer’s block, wrote indefatigably almost daily over a
period of 50 years, and he submitted his material to a wide variety
of magazines on what was probably a near daily basis. He graphically
expressed his need to write in a 1987 interview: “If I don’t write for a
week, I get sick. I can’t walk, I get dizzy. I lay in bed, I puke. Get up
in the morning and gag. I’ve got to type. If you chopped my hands
off, I’d type with my feet” (Hodenfield 59). It is very difficult to
determine with accuracy the total amount of poems, stories, essays,
columns, introductions, and letters Bukowski wrote. His astounding
literary productivity has not been properly assessed to date. According
to John Martin, Black Sparrow Press and Ecco have published 2,643
poems, but since there are many unintended duplicates in the post-
humous collections, it is safe to assume that the actual figure is closer
to 2,500. In any case, Martin claims that this amount is roughly half
the total number of poems Bukowski produced. Some of the other
half appeared in the littles, and the remaining ones have not been
published.
Tracking down Bukowski’s work is a challenging undertaking,
hindered by two major factors. First, hundreds of poems were lost
in the mail or were never returned to Bukowski. Second, he rewrote
many rejected poems and resubmitted them to the littles under dif-
ferent titles. By way of illustration, Bukowski first sent “The Way to
Review a Play and Keep Everybody Happy But Me:” to John Bryan’s
Gusher in 1959. Bryan finally published the poem in another maga-
zine, Renaissance, in July 1961. During that two-year lapse, Bukowski
assumed either that the poem was lost or that Bryan would not return
it to him as he had not replied to his inquiries. He rewrote the poem,
changed the title to “Serligev” and submitted it to Venture, where it
was published in late 1961. Thus, in characteristic bukowskian fash-
ion, the same poem—under different titles and with several changes
in the text—appeared in two little magazines in 1961. This recurring
pattern makes it virtually impossible to determine exactly how many
poems Bukowski wrote.
Likewise, Bukowski would rewrite poems first published in the
little magazines for later book publication. “I Thought of Ships, of
Armies, Hanging On . . . ” was first rejected by Northwest Review in
1963 and then published that same year in Targets. The poem sub-
sequently appeared in The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the
Hills (1969). However, there are so many substantial changes in the
book version that it can be considered a “new” poem. In this particu-
lar case, the title was preserved, so it is relatively easy to compare the
book version against the magazine text, but in many other instances
title changes greatly complicate efforts to pinpoint the magazine ver-
sion since the poems published by Black Sparrow Press provided no
bibliographical information about their prior publication. Many of
those poems may have previously appeared in the little magazines
under different titles.
Bukowski did not discuss this issue at length in his correspon-
dence, but he did write a poem about this practice in 1972:
I cleaned my place the other day

first time in ten years
and found 100 rejected poems
I placed them all on a clipboard
bad reading . . .
I must clean their teeth
fill the cavities
give them eye and ear tests
weigh them
operate
give blood transfusions
then send them out again into the
sick world of poesy. (“I Found” 3)
Recycling old material was not a practice limited to poetry. Many

of the “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” columns published in Open City
during the 1967–1969 period or in other underground newspapers,
such as Berkeley Tribe, Nola Express, or Los Angeles Free Press, were
subsequently incorporated into the novels Bukowski wrote in the
1970s, most notably Post Office (1971) and Factotum (1975). To
some critics, this practice could be both compelling and irritating;
as Kessler observed, “Bukowski’s willingness to write badly without
embarrassment, to do the same thing over and over again in poems
or in stories, is one of the exasperating and endearing things about
him” (62). Bukowski’s habit of rewriting old material contributes fur-
ther uncertainty to the total number of his publications, a figure that
has attained mythical status. Bibliographers and critics have all tried
to record it. As early as 1970, Dorbin offered a painstaking break-
down, obviously drawn up from the bibliography he had compiled
the previous year, claiming that Bukowski had already published
“sixteen books and chapbooks, another dozen-and-a-half broadsides
and pamphlets, some tape recordings, a phonograph record. Over
six hundred periodical and anthology appearances in twenty-three
states, the District of Columbia and six other countries” (“Little
Mag” 21). Nevertheless, Dorbin failed to mention a total number for
the poems and stories printed in those periodicals. According to my
own calculations, Bukowski’s appearances in newspapers and little
magazines amounted to 762 poetry and prose contributions up to
December 1969.
Nola Express was more venturesome. In an advertisement designed
by Jon Webb and published in that newspaper in 1970 to sell copies
of a cassette tape on which Bukowski read his poetry, the informa-
tion provided to underscore his popularity was completely, perhaps
deliberately, inaccurate. Webb stated that Bukowski’s Notes of a Dirty
Old Man book (Essex House, 1969) had already sold 250,000 copies,
which was impossible as Essex had actually printed only about 28,000
copies; and, according to Bukowski, the book had not been sold out
by then. Webb also maintained that Bukowski had published “2,000
poems in 191 ‘little’ magazines and underground newspapers” (“C. B.
Reads”). While this number of periodical appearances is consistent with
Bukowski’s own estimate in 1974, when he explained that his poems
had appeared in over 200 magazines in the United States and Europe
(“Narrative” 1), the figure of 2,000 poems is completely dispropor-
tionate. The only genuine piece of information furnished by Webb was
the Henry Miller quote used to characterize Bukowski’s literary stat-
ure: “Poet satyr of today’s underground.”
Other attempts to establish the total number of Bukowski’s con-

tributions to periodicals have been similarly imprecise. In Charles
Bukowski, which reads like an extremely well-documented biogra-
phy, Brewer noted that “of the thousands of poems by Bukowski that
appeared in predominantly small-press and underground publica-
tions over five decades, only approximately 50% are collected” (83).
Although it is true that only half of the poems he published in the
littles have been reprinted by Black Sparrow Press and Ecco, Brewer
does not provide a detailed analysis. According to Ciotti, by 1987
Bukowski was “a disciplined and prolific writer who, over the past
30 years, has published more than 1,000 poems, 32 books of poetry,
5 books of short stories, 4 novels and an autobiographical screenplay”
(12). Ciotti’s breakdown is definitely more accurate than Brewer’s,
but bibliographer Al Fogel’s 1999 count is probably the closest to the
actual figure: “About three thousand original contributions in over
one thousand books and periodicals spanning fifty years” (11).
These estimates clearly indicate that Bukowski was, from the very
beginning of his career, an extremely prolific author by any stan-
dards. His prodigious publication record during the three decades
from 1940 to 1969 is reflected in the appendix. The 453 Bukowski
entries—239 up to 1969—in Christopher Harter’s An Author Index
to Little Magazines of the Mimeograph Revolution confirm his pro-
lific nature. Even if Harter’s Index does not encompass the totality
of Bukowski’s mammoth output in the 1960s, it shows that he was
the most published author of the period, clearly surpassing the lit-
erary efforts of such other small press legends as Judson Crews or
Lyn Lifshin (graph 1.4). Clearly, Bukowski foresaw the significance
of the “publish or perish” culture before it became an unavoidable
reality.
Bukowski also wrote unrelentingly from 1970 up to his death.
In his correspondence he mentions having written 300 poems
between January and September 1970 (Living 91–113). In July 1974
he penned 110 poems during the first two weeks of that month.
Between September and December of 1977 he produced 200 poems,
as he repeated in several letters of the time. Not surprisingly, even
little magazines could not handle such a massive output. Bukowski
lamented to Peter Finch, editor of the British magazine Second Aeon,
that “[I] have written a couple hundred poems lately and have run out
of U.S. mags to send to” (Fales, September 16, 1970). The previous
year, Sanford Dorbin complained that Bukowski’s prolific production
would not allow him to keep up with the new material and finish
the bibliography he was compiling. Dorbin knew that dozens of new
Total number of appearances, 1960–70

237 239
201
173 180
133
108
82
72
40 40
30
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Graph 1.4 This graph, based on Harter’s index, displays the total number
of appearances of the most widely published authors in the 1960s. Since
Harter’s study does not include all the mimeos released during the period,
the figures are not representative of the actual number of periodical appear-
ances of the authors in the graph. Bukowski’s work was published in over a
hundred underground newspaper issues between 1967 and 1970, and that
is not reflected in the graph. According to Harter’s statistics, Bukowski had
239 contributions in the 1960s and Larry Eigner—whom Bukowski called
“the greatest living poet” in a 1963 interview—had 237, but between 1971
and 1980, Bukowski had 214 appearances and Eigner had 39. Likewise, Lyn
Lifshin had 72 publications in the 1960s and 357 between 1971 and 1980.
Douglas Blazek’s periodical appearances, over 200 in the 1960s, dropped to
22 between 1971 and 1980. Judson Crews, including his many pseudonyms
such as Trumbull Drachler, Cerise Farallon, and Mason Jordan Mason, did
not reach the 200 contributions because he was not especially popular in the
mimeo scene, but his work appeared in hundreds of littles and journals not
included in the graph. William Burroughs’s work was extensively printed
in alternative publications in the 1960s, but not as much in the periodicals
selected by Harter.
periodicals with Bukowski’s work would have appeared by the time

his bibliography eventually hit the shelves.
The same overwhelmingly productive process continued into the
1980s and the 1990s. According to Bukowski, the poems published in
Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981) and War All the Time (1984) only
represented one-sixth of his total output during the early 1980s—a

large part of those poems have been posthumously collected by Black
Sparrow Press and Ecco. In the early 1990s his production increased
considerably after he received a computer as a Christmas present. He
wrote several hundreds of poems in May and June 1991. Again, the
little magazines could not keep up with his mammoth literary output:
“I’m running out of magazines to send to. Even some of the univer-
sity publications are taking my things now,” Bukowski confided to
John Martin (Davidson, February 1992).
Given Bukowski’s hyperproductivity, it is no surprise that critics
soon attacked him for producing and publishing so much material.
In the early 1960s, Bukowski was already aware of such criticism:
“[S]ome people have said that I am too prolific, that I might be tend-
ing to write too much and that this could be dangerous” (Beerspit 331).
Much of this criticism was directed at the inconsistent quality of the
poetry and fiction published in the littles and underground newspapers.
Nevertheless, Bukowski knew that, being productive as he was, it was
impossible to produce first-rate material continually. As he remarked in
1970, “[T]his year I must have written 150 new poems, a novel and
maybe 30 short stories. now this stuff is not excellent but some of it
is” (Living 109). Writing so much did not always work to Bukowski’s
advantage. Besides the frequent criticism of his work being uneven in
quality, the quantity of his periodical publications led to occasional
conflicts with his editors (figure 1.1), including Martin, who believed
that having so many poems appear in the “littles” or in chapbook
form could diminish the sales of the Black Sparrow Press collections.
Bukowski also realized that his hunger to be immediately published in
the littles could not always be satisfied.
Bukowski’s potential rise in the small press was severely under-
mined by the fact that hundreds of poems were lost in the mail or
were not returned to him. As early as 1961, Bukowski had already fig-
ured out the percentage of this lost material: “Out of each 100 poems
that I write, 60 of them disappear through acceptances that never
jell or work mailed out and never returned” (Centenary, December
1961). By December 1962, Bukowski had lost close to 300 poems
since 1955, and he was clearly frustrated by the inefficiency and slov-
enliness of the editors, who did not “respond to polite and reason-
able inquiry with proper stamped self-addressed envelope enclosed”
(Screams 50). While it is true that a large number of editors did not
reply to Bukowski, there is also evidence that others, such as Clarence
Major, Carl Larsen, and Marcus Smith, to name a few, did return his
material.
Figure 1.1 Jon and Louise Webb hand-printing Bukowski’s poetry in New
Orleans. Bukowski sent this drawing in a 1964 letter to the Webbs.
Whereas this might be an infuriating practice to most authors, it

was especially painful in Bukowski’s case because he did not make
copies of his work before submission, although he did keep track of
the material submitted to the littles, at least in the early 1960s: “I
don’t keep carbons. Stuff that’s out and accepted I have no copies of.
Stuff that’s out and not coming back I have no copies of . . . I’ve even
lost a sheet of paper I used to keep that told me where I had sent some
poems or where some had been accepted,” Bukowski explained to
Corrington (Centenary, August 1961).
Naturally, friends and editors alike did not understand Bukowski’s
refusal to keep copies of his work. In 1962, Corrington scolded him
for his stubbornness: “200 poems lost. And still you won’t make
me a carbon of the new ones so I can stack them away . . . You can’t
take pleasure in seeing your own work lost and eaten up by igno-
rant fops . . . Fucking anarchist” (Elkins 579). Bukowski’s objection to
making carbon copies of his poems was deeply entrenched in his belief
that poetry was not a sacred art form; keeping copies of his material
would perpetuate the notion of the poet as an overrated artist: “That’s
a thing in the mind that tells me that if I keep carbons, I too am a
posturer looking for gravy and easy light” (“Untitled Contribution”
44). By then, Bukowski was aware of his outsider status in American
letters, and he took pride in his dogged refusal to do what was a stan-
dard practice.
By 1967, he had lost close to 500 poems in the mail. Although
the total number of poems lost in this way is not known, Pavillard
mentions a similar figure in a 1967 interview: “[Bukowski] sends
poems to the best and worst magazines, estimates between 300 and
400 are out somewhere—he doesn’t know where until a check comes
or, more frequently, a single copy of the magazine” (9). As Baughan
notes in his excellent critical volume on Bukowski, “whether any of
these works made their way into publication uncredited and uncom-
pensated is something we will probably never know for certain” (33).
Also, Bukowski did not have copies of all his magazine appearances
because some editors did not send him contributor’s copies, and,
according to legend, his friends stole his magazines and books on a
regular basis.
Because little magazine editors constantly rejected Bukowski’s
work, even when he was a relatively well-known author in the alterna-
tive literary circles of the late 1960s, he was effectively prevented from
becoming more popular in the small press. Given his massive produc-
tivity, some publishers considered the quality of his poems and stories
to be uneven and rejected them, often with good reason. Bukowski
openly admitted that his literary output was not always first-rate: “I’d
say that seventy-five percent of what I write is good; forty, forty-five
percent is excellent; ten percent is immortal, and twenty-five percent
is shit. Does it add up to one hundred?” (Bizio 34). Despite this
humorous tone, he was certainly aware of the disparate quality of
his writing, and he was usually understanding toward those editors
who rejected his subpar work. When Felix Stefanile returned some
of his poems in 1960, Bukowski’s response was cordial: “I hope to
submit to you again, and believe me, I far more appreciate your criti-
cism than ‘sorry’ or ‘no’ or ‘overstocked’” (Stefanile, September 19,
1960). Two decades later, Bukowski’s stance remained unchanged; he
believed that most editors legitimately turned down his less accom-
plished work, arguing that his submissions were mediocre.
Rejection did not deter Bukowski from incessantly producing
new material and, like a joyful Sisyphus, from submitting it to the
countless littles that were sprouting across the United States. He
claimed that rejection was necessary for a writer to evolve. From the
beginning of his career, Bukowski had grown accustomed to being
rejected. In fact, the opening of his first known published short story
could be considered an homage to the “art” of being rejected, and its
title, “Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip,” is equally telling: “I
walked around outside and thought about it. It was the longest one
I ever got. Usually they only said, ‘Sorry, this did not quite make the
grade’ or ‘Sorry, this didn’t quite work in.’ Or more often, the regu-
lar printed rejection form. But this was the longest, the longest ever”
(“Aftermath” 2). Bukowski also knew that constant rejection could
have a devastating effect on any writer: “A little rejection is good for
the soul; but total attack, total rejection is utterly destructive,” he
concluded in a 1975 interview (Wennersten 47).
Critics have claimed that Bukowski was the most published author
of the 1960s. If both the rejected work and the lost material were
added to the total number of publications on record, it might even
be accurate to say that he, along with Judson Crews and Lyn Lifshin,
is one of the three most prolific authors of recent times. Bukowski’s
work was steadily printed in the littles and underground newspapers
during the 1960s, which not only attests to the increasing interest his
writing generated but also accounts for the remarkable popularity he
attained by the end of the decade. Bukowski was, unarguably, a prod-
uct of the small press, the little magazine author par excellence; this
notion is reinforced by the fact that all the editors and publishers who
would eventually help Bukowski to become an important figure in
American letters first read his work in the little magazines published
during this period.
C H A P T E R 2
The Insider Within
A Writer Is Born (1940–1952)

The scant surviving documentation and the half-truths told by
Bukowski in interviews and in his work contribute considerably to turn
this early period into a biographical and bibliographical mirage. The
correspondence with Whit Burnett, Caresse Crosby, Judson Crews,
J. B. May, or Anthony Linick that I recently unearthed sheds light
on some previously confusing facts from the mid-1940s onward, but
the information relating to the 1940–1944 period, largely based on
Cherkovski’s biography and on Bukowski’s work, cannot be double-
checked. No correspondence from this period has surfaced as of yet—
it was probably lost or destroyed—and there are no living testimonies
to attest to the veracity of Cherkovski’s and Bukowski’s assertions. It is
an unverifiable, nebulous period at best.
Legend has it that Bukowski wrote his first short story ever—not
published—when he was in junior high school. The English teacher
asked all the students to write an essay about President Herbert
Hoover’s visit to Los Angeles. Bukowski did not go to hear Hoover’s
speech, but he did write a fictitious short story about the event. The
teacher was so impressed with the story that she read it aloud to his
classmates. The lesson learned proved to be invaluable to Bukowski;
fiction could trump reality all too easily: “So that’s what they wanted:
lies. Beautiful lies. That’s what they needed . . . It was going to be
easy for me,” he predicted when reminiscing about his childhood
(Ham 84).
As most creative adolescents, Bukowski wrote many short sto-
ries during the following years. None of them are known to have
survived in any form, but Bukowski used to mention a story about
Baron Manfred von Richthofen when asked about his earliest output:
“The first thing I ever remember writing was about a German avia-
tor with a steel hand who shot hundreds of Americans out of the sky
during World War II [sic]. It was in long hand and it covered every
page of a huge memo ringed notebook. I was about 13 at the time”
(Packard 20–21). While probably irrelevant on artistic terms, these
early lost stories show Bukowski’s budding prolific nature. When he
enrolled at Los Angeles City College in 1939 to study journalism
and English, his literary production took off: “[O]ne instructor told
the students to turn in one essay a week. Hank handed in ten to
twelve each week, sometimes more” (Cherkovski, Hank 49). If his
prolific output was already evident, the seeds of rejection were being
sown as well. In “Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip,” Bukowski
humorously recalled his college “instructress” scolding him for hav-
ing included outrageous material in an otherwise excellent short story
(98). Bukowski would follow that pattern throughout his literary
career, and it definitely accounted for many a rejection slip.
According to his biographers, it was during his Los Angeles City
College stint that Bukowski was first published. Apparently, Bukowski
wrote several letters to right-wing newspapers where he manifested
his supposed pro-Nazi stance. Even if he somewhat comically claimed
being a Nazi during his college years (Ham 236–38), Bukowski made
no reference to those letters in his fiction or correspondence. Yet,
Sounes argued that Bukowski “wrote to newspapers expressing his
extreme views” (Locked 19). When asked about this matter, Sounes
admitted that his statement was unfounded: “I don’t think I ever
saw Bukowski’s Nazi letters, rather I was taking his word—in his
other writings and in his interviews—for having written them” (“Re:
More Buk”). In all probability, Baughan had read Sounes’s mistaken
assumption when he stated that Bukowski sent “a couple of outspo-
ken letters to local newspapers” (12) because no sources are cited to
support this contention.
Biographer Barry Miles was no exception to this snowball effect;
he even mentioned one of the newspapers where those controversial
letters were hypothetically published: “He wrote letters supporting
Hitler to the Los Angeles Examiner and, according to him, most of
them were published” (C. Bukowski 49). Even though Miles claimed
that he had obtained the information from a “published source,” he
could not produce any evidence in that respect: “[I] just can’t find my
source for the newspaper letters written about Germany that I men-
tioned in the text. I certainly never saw the papers themselves” (“Re:
Bukowski”). At any rate, Bukowski acknowledged the existence of
such letters in a late poem titled “What Will the Neighbors Think?”,
stating that most of those letters, despite backing “unpopular causes,”
were published in “one of the large newspapers” (45). Although this
THE INSIDER WITHIN 45
poem was probably the source used by all biographers, it is not known
whether those letters were actually published or not as efforts to track
them down have been unsuccessful to date.
Another elusive, unverifiable early periodical would be Write; the

monthly magazine for amateur writers, considered by most collec-
tors as the Holy Grail of the Charles Bukowski publications. It has,
indeed, achieved a mythical status and, despite not being recorded
in any bibliography, its supposed existence is an open secret that has
been widely discussed in online forums. While Write and other biblio-
graphically relevant items—such as the infamous ten copies of the “A
Charles Bukowski Album” offprint produced by Jon Webb in March
1961; the “The Priest and the Matador” broadside and its previously
unknown origins; or the “A Signature of Charles Bukowski Poetry”
and “Bukowski Signature 2” detachable booklets published by the
Targets editors in 1960–1961—are fanatically sought after by col-
lectors, their relevance in Bukowski’s career is relatively minor. Write
magazine was not a milestone in Bukowski’s road to fame, either, but
it is one of the very few periodicals featuring Bukowski’s work before
1945, apparently as early as 1940, which is indeed noteworthy.
The first mention of this periodical appeared in the brief autobio-
graphical note used in Portfolio III (1946): “I was first published in
Story in 1944. Since then, a story and poem in Write.” If Bukowski’s
chronology is to be trusted, then Write would have been published
after March/April 1944 and before spring 1946. A decade later, the
magazine was listed in the contributor’s notes section of the second
issue of Harlequin (1957), coedited by Bukowski himself: “During
the 1940’s he was published in Story, Matrix, Write and Portfolio.”
Finally, Bukowski mentioned the little magazine to Experiment ’s edi-
tor Carol Ely Harper: “And, oh yes, a story and a couple of poems in
something called Write that came out once or twice and then gave it
up” (Harper, November 13, 1956). A thorough research of all the lit-
tles published during the 1940–1946 period shows that the only mag-
azine that matches the information provided by Bukowski is Write; the
monthly magazine for amateur writers.
This periodical was published in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1940, and
only three issues were printed; a fourth one was aborted halfway
through when the editor moved out of Atlanta. The first and third
issues do not feature Bukowski; whether he could have appeared in
the second issue, before the third one came out in December 1940,
is open to debate and speculation since no copies have been located.
In any case, the pre-December 1940 date does not match up with
Bukowski’s own chronology—as published in Portfolio III—but he

was known to be somewhat unreliable whenever dates were involved.
If Bukowski’s work was indeed included in that issue of Write, it
would contain his first poetry and fiction appearances in print ever.
Nevertheless, it would not have been his first periodical publica-
tion. While the hypothetical letters to the Los Angeles Examiner have
not been uncovered, the May 24, 1940, issue of Los Angeles Collegian
published a letter entitled “Why Crab?” signed by a Henry Bukowski.
The humorous tone of the letter as well as the use of the German blitz-
krieg reveal an unmistakable young Bukowski, as figure 2.1 shows.
As he explained in the 1970s to Ben Pleasants, who was working on
Figure 2.1 “Why Crab?” was Bukowski’s reply to a complaint letter titled
“Medieval Tortures” published in the May 17, 1940, issue of the Los Angeles
Collegian, where trams were depicted as “crumbling wrecks.” In the May
29 issue a reader acknowledged Bukowski’s sense of humor in defending the
streetcar system, but urged him to come up with a realistic solution.
his biography at the time, the letter was published in a section of the
newspaper called “Cubby Hole”: “It was like letters to the editor. You
had to pay five fucking dollars for the snots to publish your letter, and
it had to be typed and . . . approved by an editor” (qtd. in Pleasants,
Visceral 143). That Bukowski, whose small press forays were not prof-
itable until the late 1960s, had to pay five dollars to see his name in
print for the first time, betrays his desperate urge to be published at
all costs. Although a second letter was also printed in the Los Angeles
Collegian at the end of the semester, which “wasn’t as good” (qtd. in
Pleasants, Visceral 145), no copies are known to exist.
Since Bukowski studied journalism at the Los Angeles City College,
it would have made sense for him to try to join the college newspaper.
However, he immediately disliked the staff attitude when he visited
their office: “I walked in and looked around. There were these guys
with little paper hats on. Tremendous egos. I couldn’t stand it. So I
walked right out” (qtd. in Pleasants, Visceral 126). Bukowski expressed
a similar view in a short story titled “The Birth, Life, and Death of an
Underground Newspaper,” first published in 1969, claiming that they
did not even acknowledge his presence. Therefore, his only contribu-
tion to the newspaper were those two 1940 letters, which constitute the
first periodical appearances ever of a young Henry Charles Bukowski.
According to bibliographies, biographies, and Bukowski himself, his

literary output was not published between May 1940 and March/April
1944, when he had a short story accepted by the prestigious Story mag-
azine. However, he wrote furiously during that four-year period and he
flooded the most important journals with his work. There were very
few little magazines in the early 1940s and, being an amateur author
with dreams of becoming famous, Bukowski submitted his material to
large circulation outfits such as Esquire, Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly,
or the New Yorker. Although his fiction was thoroughly rejected, he
stubbornly refused to give up; perseverance and self-assurance would
become his main traits during those years. He repeated in countless
interviews how prolific he was at the time, even mentioning the num-
ber of short stories submitted on a weekly or monthly basis. All those
short stories were rejected and subsequently destroyed by Bukowski
himself since no surviving copies are known to exist.
In a 1964 letter to Douglas Blazek, Bukowski summed up this
process thus: “I’d mail the things out to the Atlantic Monthly or
Harper’s and when they came back I tore them up. I used to write
8 or 10 stories a week” (Screams 114). Bukowski did not regret hav-
ing destroyed those early short stories because he probably felt they
were amateurish, but he did occasionally complain in that regard. As

he remarked to Nat Freedland, who interviewed him for an erotic
magazine in 1969: “I wrote 100 short stories a month. I wish now
I had kept them. I believe maybe ten of them were pretty good”
(96). Bukowski also discussed this period at length in his own work:
“I wrote three or four stories a week. I kept things in the mail. I
imagined the editors of the Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s saying:
‘Hey, here’s another one of those things by that nut’” (Factotum 59).
Bukowski reminisced about those years in his poetry as well. Poems
such as “The Master Plan,” “You Get So Alone at Times That It Just
Makes Sense,” “Death Sat on My Knee and Cracked with Laughter,”
“Total Madness,” or “I Live to Write and Now I’m Dying,” among
many others, reflect on this subject.
As Bukowski succinctly put it in “Death Sat on My Knee,” he also
played the role of the starving artist, much like the main character
of Knut Hamsun’s Hunger. The need to write and to be published
did overcome any other consideration; having spent all his money in
stamps and envelopes, he even “took a bite of [his] wrist / but it was
very salty” (You Get So Alone 142). The starving artist impersonation
had dire consequences, and Bukowski ended up stooping to ask for
financial support to the editors who had rejected his work so far:
I was in Atlanta, living in a paper

shack for $1.25 a week.
...
I mail out letters for help
...
the editor of the New Yorker, he must know me, I’ve
mailed him a story a week for
years.
and the editor of Esquire.
and the Atlantic Monthly.
and Harper’s. (“I Live to Write” 29)
Rejection could be explained by several factors, the main one being

that his early production was probably unaccomplished on artistic
terms. Bukowski expressed on several occasions that it was marred
by a bitter tone. In the poem “self-inflicted wounds,” he described
his fiction as “jagged, harsh, with self-inflicted wounds” (The Night
Torn 343). Those short stories were emotion-driven, and Bukowski
stressed their emotional unstable nature to Pleasants: “They were lyr-
ical. They were rambling. The plot and the content were secondary. It
was a vomiting up, an effusion of feeling” (qtd. in Visceral 218). In an
early short story Bukowski discussed literary matters with his college
friends, admitting that he had not been published because he was still
“developing” (“80 Airplanes” 18).
Bukowski argued that the well-established magazines also rejected
his work on the grounds that it was the product of an insane young
author. As Bukowski repeatedly claimed, all the lost or destroyed short
stories were manically hand-printed until 1945, and that seemed to
be reason enough—alongside his persistence—to be steadily rejected.
He wryly mulled over this in a late essay: “The editors most probably
thought I was crazy, especially when they received those long hand-
printed manuscripts. I remember one fellow writing back, ‘WHAT
THE FUCK IS THIS?’ And he might have been right” (“Basic
Training” 8–9). In the early 1980s, he depicted a similar scenario,
underscoring how publishers considered him both “a clown” and “a
nut” (Camuto 34). At any rate, Bukowski did enjoy being described
in such terms since it contributed to create the “Bukowski” persona
he would later carefully and devotedly exploit.
“A little rejection is good for the soul” was one of Bukowski’s
favorite mottos. Rejection did not deter him from writing unrelent-
ingly during this early period. Indeed, he even maintained that rejec-
tion was a creative stimulus for the starving artist: “The rejection slips
hardly ever bothered me / . . . the worst was the empty / mailbox”
(“Hell Is” 77). Bukowski always acknowledged that action was cru-
cial for him, even if it meant receiving countless rejection slips.
Taken In
Bukowski’s steady, stubborn submissions to well-known magazines
are certainly remarkable. While most, if not all, critics try to prove
that Bukowski was a maverick artist who only championed alterna-
tive publications such as the littles, the mimeos, or the underground
newspapers, textual evidence points in an altogether different direc-
tion. From that very early period and up until his final days, Bukowski
intermittently submitted to the academic journals, the quarterlies and
the so-called slick magazines. Not only did he send his work to those
“snob publications,” but, in an almost perverse twist of the precon-
ceived notion of Bukowski as a radical outsider, he also lavished praise
on them.
A most revealing instance of this apparent duality was Poetry and
the Kenyon Review. While Bukowski openly despised the poetry pub-
lished in the latter periodical, he did admire the critical essays that
made it famous: “I know that the Kenyon Review is supposed to be
our enemy . . . but the articles are . . . poetic and vibrant” (Living 17).
The notion of the Kenyon Review as the “enemy” is the one that tran-
spires in all studies about Bukowski—always depicted as an under-
ground hero unremittingly charging the establishment—but the fact
that he referred to the journal in such glowing terms, and that he
described very few little magazines in an appreciative tone, definitely
attests to his belief that any periodical could be an outlet for his liter-
ary production, regardless of its artistic inclinations.
Bukowski enjoyed the linguistic subtleties that were the hallmark
of the essays published in the Kenyon Review. As he admitted in an
early prose piece, “[T]he critical articles in the Kenyon and Sewanee
Reviews [are] pretty good when you haven’t eaten for a couple of
days . . . Such musical and efficient language! And such nice ways of
knifing!” (“A Rambling” 12). Bukowski not only liked the criticism
displayed in the journal, but he also agreed with the fundamental
issues posited by the critics. Almost three decades later, he further
pondered on this matter: “Those critics . . . were amusingly vicious
toward other critics. They neatly sliced each other to pieces in the
finest of language, and I admired that . . . Ah, such a gentlemanly way
of calling each other assholes and idiots. Yet, beyond this, they had
some insights on what was wrong with poetry and what could pos-
sibly be done about that” (“Playing” 1). Bukowski’s admiration for
the Kenyon Review eventually urged him to submit his work to the
journal. It is not known whether he did on several occasions, as per
custom, or only once, as he claimed in a letter to Corrington: “I once
sent something to Kenyon Review . . . [titled] ‘Cadillacs crawl my wall
like roaches,’ and I got a note saying, ‘We almost decided to take this,
but not quite.’ Which scared me so bad I ain’t never sent again and
prob. won’t” (Centenary, April 1962). At any rate, despite the “inof-
fensive poems” published by a “snob publication” such as the Kenyon
Review, Bukowski considered it was as valid an outlet as any of the
littles where his work was regularly printed.
Bukowski’s view became apparent in the poems he wrote about
the Kenyon Review in the 1980s. “Hey, Ezra, Listen to This,” “The
Kenyon Review and Other Matters,” and “Kenyon Review, After the
Sandstorm” illustrated Bukowski’s admiration for the journal. The lat-
ter was especially enlightening in this regard:
coming off that park bench after that all night

sandstorm in El Paso
and walking into the library
I felt fairly safe even though I had less than
two dollars
was alone in the world
and was 40 pounds underweight,
it still felt normal and almost pleasant to
open that copy of the Kenyon Review
1940
and marvel at the most brilliant way those
professors used the language to criticize each
other for the way they criticized literature.
I even felt that they were humorous about it,
but not quite: the bitterness was rancid and
red steel hot, but at the same time I felt the
leisurely and safe lives that language had
evolved from: places and cultures centuries
soft and institutionalized.
I knew that I would never be able to write
in that manner, yet I almost wanted to be
one of them or any of them: being guarded,
fierce and witty, having fun
in that way.
I put the magazine back and walked outside,
looked south north east west.
each direction was wrong.
I started to walk along.
what I did know was that overeffusive language
properly used
could be bright and beautiful.
I also sensed that there might be
something else. (“Kenyon Review ” 121)
As a young man, Bukowski used to frequent libraries more often than

is commonly thought, hence dispelling the myth of the pedestrian
boozer or Dirty Old Man who could not tell “Hitler from Hercules,”
as he jokingly put it (South 33). Bukowski wrote many poems about
his early readings at the Los Angeles Public Library, most notably
“The Burning of the Dream” (1986), a long, moving tribute to the
dozens of books he devoured in that library. “Kenyon Review, After
the Sandstorm” constitutes yet another powerful testament to his lit-
erary passions. Its reflective, almost philosophical tone, resembling
that of an old man recalling his youthful (mis)adventures, alongside
the narrative structure and the avoidance of capitalization, serve a
twofold purpose: Bukowski acknowledges his high regard for The
New Critics all the while joyfully violating their aesthetics of formal
intricacy and impersonality. The narrator stoically walks away from
the library, pondering over the use of language, and Bukowski cap-
tures this snapshot by stressing in free verse his own voice in its full
first-person glory, a deliberate far cry from that of The New Critics.
Even though Gerald Locklin found this poem “revelatory” (A
Sure Bet 35), he seemed more interested in guessing the underlying
meaning of the last line—the unexplained “something else”—than
in assessing the admiration Bukowski openly expressed for the crit-
ics, “almost want[ing] to be / one of them.” Given Bukowski’s overt
praise for this journal, J. Smith’s analysis is somewhat puzzling. Smith
(Art 44–45) listed most of the contributors published in the 1940
Kenyon Review issues to show the authors Bukowski read at the time,
and he even quoted from Bukowski’s “A Rambling Essay” to prove
that he did despise the Kenyon Review, but his approach falls into the
category of those studies that glorify Bukowski as a literary outsider
who condemned academic quarterlies.
Nevertheless, in “The Kenyon Review and Other Matters,”
Bukowski’s stance is unequivocal: A young, “starving jackass . . . read-
ing that / tower of practiced literary horror, the Kenyon Review. /
somehow I admired their gamesmanship, their snobby word / play,
their inbred docility” (2–5). Furthermore, the young artist is “oddly
charmed by their petty jousting, their / safe anger, their shield of
learnedness” (8–9). Bukowski’s tone is similarly complimentary in
“Hey, Ezra, Listen to This,” which begins thus: “I think I learned
much about writing when / I read those issues of The Kenyon Review”
(1–2). Although the narrator’s initial reaction is that of perceiving
“rancor” in the critical essays, he then claims that their writing is
indeed compelling and all-powerful: “I learned that words could /
beat the hell out of / anything” (15–17). The young Bukowski was
undoubtedly enthralled by the linguistic deeds accomplished by the
Kenyon Review critics.
Yet, in M. Basinski’s otherwise insightful assessment of “The
Kenyon Review and Other Matters,” his conclusions appear to be
marred by an incomplete view on the issue: “[T]he entrenched conser-
vatism of the Kenyon Review . . . contradicts the libertarian, anarchis-
tic, independent ideals of Charles Bukowski” (“American Grain” 53).
Like J. Smith, Basinski stressed the supposed nonconformist, rebel-
lious ideology of the young Bukowski, overlooking the dual nature of
Bukowski’s opinion about the Kenyon Review and other quarterlies
of the period. As a matter of fact, when Basinski remarked that the
journal editor, John Crowe Ransom, “continued his dictatorial reign
during the years of WWII (the period of Bukowski’s apprenticeship)”
(ibid.), he reinforced the notion of that publication as the “enemy”

that Bukowski mentioned to Corrington in 1962.
According to the critics who championed Bukowski as one of
the most radical voices of the 1960s, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse
constituted yet another—distinguished—instance of the enemy.
Presumably, to Bukowski it was a conservative journal where his most
traditional verse could be published. Despite launching several harsh
attacks on Poetry, Bukowski knew it was a large-circulation periodi-
cal with a loyal readership, the ideal outlet to receive the exposure he
desperately needed. Hence, he sent his work to Poetry several times in
the 1950s, the 1960s, and, quite possibly, the 1940s. A 1961 letter to
Jon Webb reveals that he had already submitted to Poetry on a regular
basis: “I knew how I felt when I kept getting those same fkg faded
blue rejects from Poetry, time after time after time” (McCormick,
Outsider, April 18, 1961). As in the case of Accent, Bukowski refused
to give up and he stubbornly tried to get published in Poetry until his
poems were finally accepted in 1993, shortly before he passed away.
Bukowski had already learned that perseverance was rewarded more
often than not.
Poetry is usually cited as the first little magazine published in the
United States, the one that “inaugurated the recognized history of
the American little magazine movement” (Rom 516). While it was
considered a literary venture open to experimentation in the 1920s,
its prestige as a little decreased over the years. In 1965 Bukowski
complained about the staid nature of the material printed in Poetry
in the 1960s. The fact that Robert Creeley had claimed in a 1963
issue of Poetry that “the work is still to be done” (48) in regards to
Bukowski’s chapbook Run with the Hunted, seemed to particularly
annoy Bukowski, reinforcing his critical stance. In 1964, Bukowski
summed up his opinion: “Poetry, once the thumper of the land with
a young Ezra as European editor, has now diminished into the bones
of its reputation; you can see one in any library, safely shining, saying
nothing, heralding the same safe names” (“Examining” 1). Poetry
rejected Bukowski’s work several times in the 1960s, which might
account for his criticism.
Three decades later, Poetry could no longer be seen as a little maga-
zine promoting unknown authors or controversial works. As many
critics accurately noted, Poetry had turned into an institution. Basinski
even argued that “Poetry is far from an avant garde publication. It is, at
least presently [1993], a conservative, middle of the road publication,
which often features the poetry of Assistant Professor types . . . I was
surprised to find Bukowski published in Poetry ” (“In the Maw” 31).

Unbeknownst to Basinski and most of the critics who failed to grasp
the true scope of Bukowski’s need to be published, he had persistently
submitted to the journal since at least as early as 1952. While critics
were appalled by the fact that Bukowski’s work appeared in the pages
of the arch-enemy, to him it might have entailed the realization of
one his earliest dreams, a most rewarding achievement that evidenced
that his writing disease was entirely justified. As Bukowski confided
to Joseph Parishi, editor of Poetry in the 1990s, “I remember, as a
very young man, sitting around the L.A. public library reading Poetry,
a Magazine of Verse. Now, at last, I have joined you” (Lilly, Poetry,
February 1, 1993). The notion of Bukowski as an antiestablishment
author who considered the little magazines and small press ventures
his natural—and sole—arena, thus consolidating the outsider persona
that Bukowski himself happily perpetuated, should be, once and for
all, abandoned.
A Most Strange Pertinacity

Bukowski’s countless submissions to Poetry, the Kenyon Review, the
Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Harper’s, and Esquire prove that
his quixotic efforts to be published were indiscriminate. He was a
completely unknown author trying to persuade the editors of those
mainstream periodicals that his work was worth publishing. The fact
that it was unanimously rejected did not seem to discourage him in
the least. After a four-year period of constant rebuff, his stubbornness,
self-assurance, and perseverance were finally rewarded when Whit
Burnett, editor of the prestigious Story: The Magazine of the Short
Story, decided to publish his first short story in the March/April 1944
issue, coincidentally titled “Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip.”
Bibliographies and biographies record this short story as Bukowski’s
first publication ever, but his own recollection was different. In a
1990 interview, Bukowski explained that he did not recall when he
had been published for the first time, but “[I] can remember my first
major publication, a short story in . . . Story magazine, 1944” (Ring
9). Bukowski’s reply indicates the existence of a previous periodical
appearance; it is not known whether he was referring to Write or to
another little magazine published in the early 1940s. At any rate, he
was not particularly proud of his earliest appearance in print since he
had apparently forgotten it.
Nevertheless, Bukowski always remembered Burnett and Story. He
claimed that, alongside H. L. Mencken, Burnett was one of the most
important editors of the twentieth century. Peter Martin corrobo-

rated Bukowski’s view in his annotated bibliography: “[Story] was ‘the
most distinguished short story magazine in the world’—an accolade
difficult to challenge in the 1930s and 1940s” (737). In the tradi-
tion of the true little magazines, Story fearlessly sponsored the best
new literature available, and it encouraged experimentation and inno-
vation in the short story form. Perhaps Burnett printed Bukowski’s
short story because of the obvious references to him and Story, and
his editorial decision, then, was not based on the artistic merits of
the piece, but in retrospect Bukowski was nonetheless delighted to
have been discovered by the same editor who had published authors
such as William Saroyan, J. D. Salinger, Norman Mailer, or Truman
Capote when they were completely unknown.
However, Bukowski was disappointed to learn that Burnett had
placed his short story in the “end notes” section of the magazine, as
if it were a “curiosity piece” (Cherkovski, Hank 79); with the benefit
of hindsight, Bukowski would consider it a poorly executed work, but
it definitely frustrated him to realize that Burnett had not given it a
prominent place in the publication. Disappointments and frustrations
notwithstanding, Bukowski knew that Story was an important maga-
zine that would contribute to bring about the exposure he needed,
despite the fact that he was paid only 25 dollars for his literary efforts:
“That wasn’t very much, not even for those days. It was the prestige.
Once you hit Story, you were supposed to have made it” (Grenoble 36).
Similarly, he confided to Gundolf Freyermuth in the early 1990s that
“when you got in there, you were officially considered to be a genius”
(46). Paradoxically, Bukowski seemed uninterested in the supposed
success that his first publication could earn him. After the March/
April 1944 issue of Story came out, the editors of the mass-circulation
magazines Esquire and Mademoiselle and an agent approached him,
but he refused to meet them: “I got a letter from an agent . . . and she
said, ‘I want to be your agent on further work,’ and I said, ‘I’m not
writing. I’m not ready yet. I just happened to hit one time—and it
was a bad story’” (Robson and Bryson 31). Bukowski resorted to that
argument on several occasions during his career, most notably to jus-
tify his longest nonwriting period ever (1945–1955).
That Bukowski stated that his first published work was a “bad story”
is quite revealing. He expressed a similar view in the 1990 interview: “I
had been sending them [Story] a couple of short stories a week for maybe
a year and a half. The story they finally accepted was mild in compari-
son to the others” (Ring 9). He complained about the quality of his
next published short story in Portfolio (1946), as well as about his first
poems in Matrix (1946). Most likely, Bukowski felt those early poems
and short stories were amateurish, “jagged,” and “harsh.” Indeed,
the rejection slip issued by Burnett—reproduced in the first page of
“Aftermath”—attests to the nature of those early works: “Again, this
is a conglomeration of extremely good stuff full of idolized prostitutes,
morning-after vomiting scenes, misanthropy, praise for suicide etc. that
it is not quite for a magazine of any circulation at all” (2). In all likeli-
hood, Bukowski considered that, even though he was constantly pro-
ducing new material, he was basically unskilled.
The often mentioned “I’m not writing. I’m not ready yet” assertion
apparently persuaded Miles to conclude that Bukowski “never sub-
mitted anything else to Story ” (C. Bukowski 69). Likewise, Baughan
claimed that “Hank never sent anything to Story or corresponded with
Whit Burnett again” (19). Not only did Bukowski submit dozens of
short stories to Story during the next decade, such as “A Genius on
Skid Row” (1946) or “The Rapist’s Story” (1952), but he also wrote
several letters to Burnett during the 1945–1955 period. In 1954,
when Bukowski had already begun to bombard the little magazines
that were bursting into life across the United States, he found out that
Burnett had decided to put an end to Story: “I’m sorry to hear . . . that
Story is no longer alive . . . I’ll always remember the old orange maga-
zine with the white band . . . I remember when I used to write and send
you fifteen or twenty or more stories a month . . . And now, there’s no
more Story ” (Princeton, August 25, 1954). It is unknown how many
short stories Bukowski actually submitted to Story, but given his pro-
lific and persistent nature, he probably sent over a hundred stories to
the magazine, of which Burnett only published one.
It saddened Bukowski to learn that Burnett did not recall having
printed that short story, his first-ever published piece. However, Burnett
remembered an altogether more significant detail: “I have read every-
thing you sent and so far never printed you, and yet you have a talent
and a strange pertinacity” (Princeton, February 17, 1955). In his long
reply to Burnett, Bukowski’s tone was neither resentful nor upset, and
he tackled the issue only in passing: “In your note you said you have
never printed me. Do you have a copy of Story, March-April 1944?”
(Princeton, February 27, 1955). Yet, Burnett’s depiction of Bukowski
as having “a strange pertinacity” was astonishingly accurate and it was
prescient of Bukowski’s approach to writing throughout his career.
After the minor achievement of Story, and Bukowski’s unwilling-
ness to savor the sweet taste of success, his next publication would be
a short story titled “20 Tanks from Kasseldown,” an imaginary recre-
ation since, as he confided to collector Jim Roman, “there wasn’t any
Kasseldown or anything else. just something I figured could happen

anytime, anywhere” (Davidson, May 7, 1966). Although Bukowski
mistakenly wrote in the poem “Black Sun” that “Caresse Crosby pub-
lished my first short story / when I was 24” (Open 77), that story
actually appeared alongside Henry Miller, Jean-Paul Sartre, Federico
García Lorca, Kenneth Rexroth, and Stephen Spender in the third issue
of Portfolio: An International Review, edited by Crosby in the spring
of 1946. Henry Miller was the associate prose editor of Portfolio, and it
has been suggested that perhaps it was Miller—instead of Crosby—who
selected Bukowski’s story, thus explaining “how Bukowski ever ended
up in this elegant and fashionable post war journal being put out by
one of the most glamorous figures of avant-garde Paris of the 1920s”
(Blair). However, a thorough analysis of the Miller/Crosby epistolary
exchange shows no indication that this did happen.
In his correspondence, Bukowski could not conceal the joy of
having been published alongside well-known authors such as Miller,
Lorca, and Sartre, but as in the case of “Aftermath,” he expressed
his dissatisfaction in “20 Tanks,” hence reinforcing the notion of his
early material as unaccomplished. Several decades later, the fact that an
irregular short story by a complete unknown such as himself appeared
in a prestigious periodical still puzzled him: “Caresse published one of
my first stories and I always wondered why” (Reach 55). Interestingly
enough, in a March 1961 letter to Webb, Bukowski listed all the mag-
azines he had been published in to date and, even though he included
Story or obscure littles such as Simbolica or Matrix, he failed to men-
tion Portfolio. Nevertheless, Bukowski was prone to changing his
assessments over time. In a late essay, he did not condemn “20 Tanks,”
claiming it was “great story” (“Another Portfolio” 15).
Except for an isolated instance in October 1946, when Bukowski
angrily requested Crosby to return the short stories he had submit-
ted to Portfolio in March of that year, the Bukowski/Crosby episto-
lary relationship was most friendly. Furthermore, Bukowski always
referred to her in flattering terms, and he even wrote several poems
about Portfolio and Crosby, whereas Burnett was never honored with
a poem. In both “The Beautiful Lady Editor” and “I Live to Write,”
set in Atlanta, Bukowski reminisced about Crosby as well as about his
“starving artist” period, when both his father and the magazine edi-
tors refused to help him financially:
I took all the letters down to the corner mailbox

dropped them in and
waited.
I thought, somebody will take pity on the starving

writer . . .
the first letter was from my father,
a six pager, and I shook the pages
again and again
but there was no
money
just
advice,
the main bit
being: “you will never be a
writer! what you write is too
ugly! nobody wants to read that
CR AP!”
then the day
came!
a letter from Caresse
Crosby!
I opened it.
no money
but
neatly typed:
“Dear Charles:
it was good to hear from
you. I have given up the
magazine. I now live in a
castle in Italy. it is
high on a mountain but
below me is a village
and I often go down there
to help the poor. I feel
it is my calling.
love,
Caresse . . . ”
didn’t she read my letter?
I
was the poor!
...
it was only some decades after
when I was in slightly better circumstance
I happened to read about the death of
Caresse Crosby,
and I once again became confounded
by her refusal to
send a lousy buck to a
starving American genius. (“I Live to Write” 29–32)
Bukowski always recalled the so-called Atlanta episode as one of the

bleakest moments of his early life. It exceedingly annoyed him that
his biographer, Neeli Cherkovski, disregarded such a crucial incident,
as he confided to Gerald Locklin in the early 1990s: “I recounted for
him . . . scenes of pure dank ultra darkness. But he watered it all down
or left it out” (Reach 171). In an attempt to make up for Cherkovski’s
diluted account of the Atlanta episode, Bukowski wrote several poems
about that period, such as “Contemporary Literature, One,” where
he repeatedly insisted on how the compulsion to write had saved him
from committing suicide.
In an almost perverse twist of fate, his father, who had adamantly
condemned Bukowski’s aspirations as a writer, passed himself off as
his son—they both were named Henry Charles Bukowski—and pro-
duced a copy of Portfolio to his superior at the Los Angeles County
Museum to rightfully demand a more important position. Indeed,
he was promoted from “security guard to floor assistant helping to
hang pictures” (Miles, C. Bukowski 81). Bukowski recalled this imper-
sonation episode on several occasions in his correspondence: “[T]he
old man stole Portfolio II [sic], both copies, and got himself a better
job at the L. A. County Museum . . . and I often wonder . . . what the
people thought of him. he was such a beastly stupid prick” (Screams
207–208). In most cases, Bukowski’s tone was bitter and full of unfor-
giving resentment.
J. Smith argues that after the relative success that both Story and
Portfolio could have brought about, “Bukowski’s early writing, far
from being totally rejected, was thus known to, encouraged, and
accepted by well-connected international figures in the art” (Art 46).
However, those two major publications were exceptions that proved
a very different rule: Bukowski’s work was constantly rejected by the
New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly, and probably by
many other large-circulation periodicals, not to mention that several
little magazines published in the mid- to late 1940s, such as Accent,
Decade, Circle or the Ark, also ignored his literary efforts.
Matrix was yet another exception. A nonprofit little magazine
first edited in Philadelphia and in New York by Joseph Moskovitz
and Frank Brookhouser, and later in California by Joe Moray and
S. E. Mackey, “the files of Matrix present the writings of a number
of young unknowns, as well as those of a few established writers”
(Hoffman 347). Two poems and a short story by an unknown young
Bukowski appeared in Matrix in the summer of 1946. In the edi-
torial of that issue, Moskovitz made a most portentous statement:
“Matrix is important because it serves to encourage, and to introduce
to a reading public, promising, talented writers who have something

worthwhile to say . . . We predict that some of the names in this issue
will become well-known before long” (1–2). Although it would take
Bukowski decades to attain the popularity he sought for, Moskovitz’s
premonition was essentially on-target.
Bukowski’s work was featured in another four Matrix issues dur-
ing 1947–1951 and, yet, despite the fact that it was the first periodical
to print Bukowski’s poetry and the only known little magazine that
published him during the 1947–1955 period, there is not a single
reference to Matrix in the five volumes of correspondence released
by Black Sparrow Press and The Paget Press. In a letter originally
intended for Reach for the Sun —but finally discarded—Bukowski did
mention Matrix when recalling his earliest publications: “Yes, there
were some dribbles of writing in the 40’s. Story, Portfolio, Matrix,
maybe somewhere else” (S. Harrison, May 5, 1992). Again, Bukowski
suggests the possibility of having appeared in other periodicals in the
1940s. At any rate, the Matrix files have not been uncovered as of yet,
and that might account for the lack of references to this important lit-
tle magazine that published him regularly when most editors rejected
his work, hence encouraging him to redouble his literary efforts.
Encouragement notwithstanding, Bukowski, as in the case of Story
and Portfolio, was not particularly proud of the material published in
Matrix. As he confided to Crosby in late 1946, “[I] have managed to
get rid of three fair stories and four unsatisfactory poems to Matrix,
a rather old-fashioned Philadelphia ‘little magazine’” (Carbondale,
November 1946). In a 1970 interview, he recalled those early poems
in a similarly disenchanted tone: “[They were] rather subjective and
maybe a little bit bitter” (Robson and Bryson 32). Interestingly,
he mentioned the poems in his application for the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship submitted in 1973: “At the age
of 25 I had practically stopped writing and submitting except for a
couple of desultory appearances around 1948 in a little magazine,
Matrix ” (“Narrative” 1). Bukowski’s characterization of his early
poems as “unsatisfactory,” “desultory,” and “bitter” evidences their
unaccomplished nature.
Despite Bukowski’s harsh criticism of his own work, one of the early
short stories published in Matrix is worth mentioning. Although the
unpublished correspondence indicates that it was written in late 1945
or early 1946, “Cacoethes Scribendi” was published in the fall/win-
ter 1947 issue. Resembling “Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip”
in its meta-literary approach, the editor of the short story explains to
the main character, a young writer resembling Bukowski, that “I can’t
use you as associate editor” (34). In the next Matrix issue, a reader
commented on this story—it could be considered the first review ever
about Bukowski’s work—in the “Letters” section of the magazine:
“Bukowski: Puzzling. Too close to the experience of writers to be less
than uncomfortable” (Harvey 2). Puzzling, indeed. In their edito-
rial assessment of this fictional recreation, the Story editors decided
that Bukowski was writing, again, about Burnett, but this time they
chose not to publish his work, arguing he was “crazy” and “ready for
the asylum” (Princeton, n.d.). While “Aftermath” had been written
in jest, “Cacoethes Scribendi” seemed to be a bitter account of an
imaginary meeting between Bukowski and Burnett. As the Story edi-
tor had warned Bukowski in the early 1940s, most of his short stories
were not apt for publication.
Rejection on the one hand and Bukowski’s perception of himself
as an underdeveloped, inexperienced writer on the other were the
main causes that probably triggered the next series of events. As he
repeatedly reported in interviews, poems, and short stories, Bukowski
quit writing in 1945, and he would not resume his literary career
until 1955. That apparently barren decade constitutes one of his most
popular, happily self-perpetuated myths. Since he claimed that he
concentrated on drinking, and not on writing, he decided to call this
period his personal “ten year drunk.” However, as is the case with
most Bukowski’s myths, dates and facts are deliberately misleading
and error-inducing.
In his first interview ever, published in Chicago’s Literary Times
in 1963, Bukowski had already devised his “master plan,” as he
christened it in a late poem. He unblinkingly explained to the inter-
viewer, Arnold Kaye, that he had begun to write at age 35. In the
mid-1970s, he corroborated this assertion in an interview with Marc
Chénetier for Northwest Review magazine: “I stopped all writing for
ten years and just got drunk. While the Beats were beating, I was
drinking . . . I started drinking—real heavy drinking—at the age of
25 and didn’t stop till I was 35. I didn’t write at all for ten years”
(13). Nevertheless, Bukowski was not a trustworthy autobiographer,
and in some instances he claimed that he quit writing when he was
24, and not 25, or that he did not produce any new material during
nine years, instead of ten. In a 1983 interview, he even stated that he
resumed his literary career when he was 32: “To have the nerve to
attempt an art form as exacting and unremunerative as poetry at the
age of thirty-two is a form of madness” (Rolfe 71). Curiously enough,
this apparent forgetfulness is more accurate than any of the other self-
mythologizing claims.
Bukowski consolidated the ten-year-drunk myth in his work as

well. A late poem titled “The Master Plan,” where the poet becomes
“a starving drunk instead of a starving / writer” (94), unequivocally
tries to glorify the artistic virtues of alcohol to justify his decision to
not write. Nevertheless, Bukowski himself admitted that he did write
during the ten-year drunk, albeit less prolifically. In November 1948,
he confided to Burnett, “I’m not writing much anymore,” and almost
five years later he expressed a similar fact to Crosby: “I don’t write
so much now” (Princeton; Carbondale, August 7, 1953). More than
three decades later, he maintained the same view in a letter to John
Martin where he recalled having created new material before 1955:
“I wrote very few poems before age 35 but there were some, I don’t
know how many . . . say between 3 or 4 or 7?” (Davidson, February 28,
1988). Bukowski was probably thinking of the five poems published
in Matrix and the two poems that perhaps appeared in Write, but
those figures do not account for the dozens of poems rejected during
that period by Accent, Circle, the Ark, and other little magazines.
Critics were aware of the myth that Bukowski had carefully honed,
and they tried to dispel it on several occasions. For instance, Miles
pointed out that the short story published in Matrix in 1948 “sug-
gests he did not completely give up writing in 1945 as he claimed”
(C. Bukowski 68). However, Fulton, in his otherwise well-researched
articles, maintained that Bukowski only wrote “20 Tanks” dur-
ing the ten-year drunk. For some reason, Fulton ignored all the
Matrix appearances, listed in Dorbin’s bibliography. Similarly, Lewis
concluded that Bukowski did not publish any material during the
infamous ten-year drunk: “Collecting more rejection slips than
checks . . . Bukowski gave up writing to plunge into an alcoholic binge
which lasted for nine years” (3). Nevertheless, the recently unearthed
correspondence from that period as well as the Accent files reveal that
Bukowski wrote and submitted his work in relatively large quantities
between 1945 and 1955. His literary production diminished consid-
erably from early 1949 to late 1952, and the only known appearance
is a poem published in Matrix in 1951, although the poem could
have been submitted in the late 1940s only to be printed after a delay
of several years, a practice annoyingly common in the little magazine
field. While Bukowski’s work was not published in 1949–1950 nor in
1952–1955, he did write during those years and he submitted poetry
and fiction to several little magazines, as he admitted in the Rolfe
interview.
Accent would be the most striking documented case of a little
magazine that consistently rejected Bukowski’s work during this
early period. From April 1944 to August 1960, totaling 28 submis-

sions, Bukowski sent 44 poems, 30 stories, and 1 article about Walt
Whitman to this little magazine. The last submission from the 1940s
took place in November 1947, and the next one was in April 1953.
During 1953–1955—when Bukowski was apparently not writing—he
sent 12 short stories and 17 poems to the magazine. Two of the short
stories were subsequently published in Harlequin in 1957, and the
remaining ones were probably destroyed or lost. Some of the rejected
poems were printed in little magazines such as Existaria or Hearse
in the late 1950s. Accent duly recorded all submissions, but none of
them were published.
Bukowski’s titles were usually illustrative of the content, as some of
the short stories rejected by Accent show: “The Birth, Maintenance
and Death of the Soul” (dated April 4, 1944), “Fog and Sawdust”
(October 14, 1944), “Down on Skid Row” (November 26, 1947),
“The Man Who Thought He Was Hitler” (July 30, 1954) or “Keep
Your Pants Buttoned in a Literary Discussion” (July 27, 1956). Some
of the short stories rejected by both Story and Portfolio were titled
thus: “A Very Small Room Will Do” (1945, resubmitted as “The
Rape” in 1946), “The War, the War!” (1946), “Lay It to Something”
(1946), “A Genius on Skid Row” (1946), or “A Kind, Understanding
Face” (1948). According to Bukowski, upon receiving these rejected
short stories, he proceeded to destroy them. The only surviving piece
from this period is “A Kind, Understanding Face” (figure 2.2). It is
one of the famously hand-printed stories that Bukowski mentioned in
several interviews, but it is a poorly executed short story that confirms
the amateurish nature of his early output.
Coming of Age (1953–1957)

While the Accent files and the unpublished correspondence show
that the ten-year-drunk myth can be easily debunked, it is true that
Bukowski’s literary production dwindled to a large extent, most nota-
bly during 1949–1952. Nevertheless, by 1953 his output began to be
more substantial and in April 1954 the so-called “bleeding ulcer” or
“Charity Ward” episode radically changed Bukowski’s writing pace,
as he tirelessly repeated in interviews. He was taken to the charity
ward of Los Angeles General Hospital where he almost hemorrhaged
to death because he did not have credit for a much needed blood
transfusion. After refusing the last rites, however, the credit estab-
lished by the person he despised the most, his own father, ultimately
saved him. This incident was humorously described in the short story
Figure 2.2 First page of “A Kind, Understanding Face,” the only known
surviving hand-printed short story from the 1940s.
“Life and Death in the Charity Ward” (1971) and in the lost story
“Beer, Wine, Vodka, Whiskey; Wine, Wine, Wine” (1954). Bukowski
claimed that he felt like a newly born man after the transfusion, and his
urge to write experienced an unstoppable resurgence that translated
into countless submissions to the little magazines that, coincidentally
enough, were beginning to emerge across the United States.
In late 1952, Esquire rejected his work; in 1953, Judson Crews

held his poems for consideration; interestingly, Bukowski was not yet
satisfied with his output or perhaps he was so prolific again that he
did not mind destroying his own work, even telling Crews there was
no need to send the poems back because he would throw them away.
Poetry did not accept his work in 1953–1954 nor in 1956; Folio took
his poetry in 1954, but it was never published. Embryo, Portfolio,
Story, and Accent rejected Bukowski several times in 1954–1955;
Experiment and In/Sert accepted his poems in 1956, although they
were printed after a five-year delay. As in the 1940s, his work was
turned down by most periodicals, but it began to slowly seep into the
alternative literary scene.
Several factors could explain this transition into acceptance. During
the 1940s, Bukowski had submitted mostly fiction to well-established
periodicals with a relatively large circulation. There was not an abun-
dance of little magazines at the time and, being a prolific amateur
author who wanted to become famous at all costs, the most logical
arena was that of “snob publications” such as the Atlantic Monthly,
the New Yorker, or Harper’s. In the 1950s, especially after the bleed-
ing ulcer incident, he began to produce poetry in greater quanti-
ties and he submitted it to the little magazines that were sprouting
across the country. By then, after countless rejection slips where he
had been reminded of the outrageous, nonpublishable nature of his
work, Bukowski knew that the littles were the only outlet for his
increasingly prolific output, although he occasionally sent his poetry
to important periodicals such as Poetry or Esquire. Despite Bukowski
stating otherwise in interviews, he did submit fiction during the mid-
and late 1950s. The short stories published in Harlequin in 1957, as
well as the ones rejected by Accent in 1955–1956 and Hearse in 1958,
disprove Bukowski’s self-mythologizing statements.
The gradual acceptance of Bukowski’s work during this period
could also be explained by both the little magazines’ willingness to
publish experimental material and the fact that Bukowski’s poetry
was no longer as “bitter,” “jagged,” and “harsh” as in the 1940s. In
a 1975 interview conducted by Robert Wennersten for the British
London Magazine, Bukowski’s view was unequivocal: “I started mail-
ing them out [poems], and it began all over. I was luckier this time,
and I think my work had improved. Maybe the editors were readier,
had moved into a different area of thinking” (45). Bukowski was
aware of this noticeable switch in his career and on the literary scene,
and he certainly benefited from this changing situation.
Bukowski oftentimes referred to this period as his “second com-

ing,” and this transition period might even be considered a cre-
ative rebirth of sorts, but the compulsion to write had been one of
Bukowski’s ever-present traits since he had started out as a writer in
the early 1940s, save for the literary continence caused by alcohol dur-
ing 1949–1952. Bukowski’s personal cacoethes scribendi was reflected
in his poems and short stories on several occasions; “Contemporary
Literature, One,” a narrative poem published in the early 1980s,
illustrates Bukowski’s creative urge at length. Nevertheless, quoting
excerpts from his narrative poems is problematic because, as Locklin
pointed out, “his poems tend to reach a certain length and the best
are often the longest . . . To quote a line here and there makes as much
sense as to tell a punch line without the build-up” (A Sure Bet 30).
Preserving the narrative nature of the poem becomes necessary to
properly show Bukowski’s creative need:
[I] lived in a
paper shack in Atlanta
$1.25 a week rent
no light
no water
no toilet
no heat
...
it was freezing
no friends
parents 3,000
miles away
who refused to
send money
...
all my manuscripts
returned from the
magazines
...
The narrator considers committing suicide, but:
I saw some newspapers

on the floor
I was out of writing
paper
had long ago hocked
my typewriter
I noticed that
each page of the
newspaper had a wide white
margin around the
edge
I had a pencil
stub
I picked up a
newspaper and with
the pencil stub
I began to write
words
on the edge
sitting in the doorway
freezing in the moonlight
so that I could
see
I wrote in pencil
on all the edges
of all the newspapers
in that shack. (Dangling 261–63)
Bukowski repeatedly mentioned in interviews and in his own work

that the anguishing need to write had saved him from commit-
ting suicide on several occasions, most notably during the infamous
Atlanta incident. “Contemporary Literature, One,” with its parodic
title, does reflect at length such a situation, stressing the urge to write
above any other consideration.
By 1954, this desperate need to create translated into a relatively
large output. Bukowski, driven by a compulsive hunger for exposure,
largely discarded mainstream periodicals. He had learned the les-
son in the 1940s, as he expressed in an uncollected poem printed
in Harlequin in 1956, where he referred to his previously published
work: “You create but you are only accepted when you / are care-
ful” (“Wash”). Bukowski concentrated all his efforts on the little
magazines, mostly ran by young editors and authors receptive to
experimental or controversial material. Many of the littles published
in the early to mid-1950s were influenced by The New Critics and
Modernism, but there was a fledgling literary movement that would
soon explode into the so-called revolution of the 1960s. Those
emerging alternative publications were the ideal breeding ground for
unknown authors such as Bukowski.
The magazine directory provided by Trace was an excellent resource
to find those littles that were more akin to Bukowski’s approach to
literature. It did not escape him that Trace listed dozens of indepen-
dent littles where his material could be published, and he consulted
the directory many a time to find potential magazines. As early as
August 1959, Bukowski confided to J. B. May that Trace proved to
be invaluable to maverick authors such as himself: “Trace has long
impressed me as the only gathering ground for those of us camping
outside the oligarchy of university wall” (Fullerton). Furthermore,
Bukowski believed that Trace was instrumental in promoting the lit-
tles, claiming that it was “the only gathering force of the new emer-
gence of the little magazines” (“Dirty” 76).
P. Martin stressed this perception in his annotated bibliography,
where he reviewed Trace generously: “Trace anticipated the ‘mimeo
revolution’ of the later 1950s and 1960s and promoted discussion of
small magazines and presses at a time when they received little atten-
tion” (739). Trace not only listed and promoted new little magazines,
but it also constituted a public forum where editors discussed their own
magazines and encouraged readers to submit their work. Bukowski
used Trace’s forum to voice his opinion on several matters, including
his editorial decisions regarding Harlequin, a little magazine that he
coedited with his wife, Barbara Fry. Many editors believed that Trace’s
contribution to the growth of the little magazines and its subsequent
revolution in the 1960s was invaluable, and they also considered that
its public forum was pivotal in acquainting editors with one another to
then create those literary networks that distributed alternative literature
so efficiently.
Accent, Embryo, Experiment, Folio, Harlequin, In/Sert, Poetry,
Quixote, the Beloit Poetry Journal, Naked Ear, and the other maga-
zines Bukowski submitted to during this transition period were listed
in Trace, which shows that he definitely used the magazine’s direc-
tory on a regular basis. Bukowski’s first known publication after the
poem printed in Matrix in 1951 was the first issue of Harlequin.
Bibliographies and biographies list Quixote and the Naked Ear as
Bukowski’s first periodical appearances in the mid-1950s, but fac-
tual evidence indicates a different chronology. For instance, Dorbin
recorded the Naked Ear as being published in 1956 as per Bukowski’s
suggestion: “The Naked Ear #9 was published by Crews in Taos.
Don’t know date. Estimate 1955–1956” (Alberta, April 2, 1969).
While it is likely that Bukowski had sent his work in 1955–1956, or
even earlier, the accepted poem was published in late 1957. By 1969,
Bukowski had probably forgotten a letter to Crews dated November
1957 where he expressed his satisfaction over Crew’s acceptance of
the poem while requesting “a couple of copies when you (and I) come
out” (Ransom).
Bukowski’s contribution to the first issue of Harlequin, published

in late 1956, is not listed in any of his bibliographies or biographies.
The scant number of copies distributed, sought after by collectors
willing to pay several thousands of dollars for a single issue, might
account for its apparent nonexistence—although 200 copies were
printed per issue, “maybe 5 or 6 [were] sold,” as Bukowski explained
to Jim Roman (Davidson, July 6, 1964). However, Harlequin was a
milestone magazine in Bukowski’s career for several reasons. Not only
was it the first periodical to encourage him by printing his work after
the relatively barren 1945–1955 period, but it was also one of the
very few magazines coedited by Bukowski, where he mercilessly took
revenge on those editors who had previously rejected his poetry in
the early to mid-1950s. As in the case of the material from the 1940s,
there is no surviving correspondence related to the magazine, and
the Harlequin files were apparently destroyed by a fire. The recently
uncovered correspondence to J. B. May sheds light on some of the
most confusing aspects of the publication, but the largest part of the
information available comes from Bukowski’s interviews and work,
which are deliberately unreliable.
Bukowski claimed in countless interviews that after the bleed-
ing ulcer incident he began to produce poetry in large quantities.
Since Bukowski had already devised the ten-year-drunk myth (1945–
1955), for consistency reasons he had to set the Charity Ward episode
in 1955 since the bleeding ulcer was a consequence of the preced-
ing alcohol-fueled period. Nevertheless, the correspondence to both
Caresse Crosby and Whit Burnett, as well as the story “Beer, Wine,
Vodka, Whiskey; Wine, Wine, Wine,” based on the same episode and
rejected by Accent, show both that the bleeding ulcer incident actu-
ally took place in April 1954, and that Bukowski had resumed his
literary career as early as 1952. However, the essence of the story,
chronological inaccuracies notwithstanding, is accurate: Bukowski’s
output increased considerably after the Charity Ward episode, and,
in most cases, he referred to that incident as the starting point of the
Harlequin narrative.
Bukowski’s poetic production was so substantial from April 1954
onward that he desperately needed an outlet for that creative effusion.
As he confided to Wennersten in 1975,
I didn’t know what to do with these poems, so I went down a list

of magazines and put my finger on one. I said, “All right. Might as
well insult this one. She’s probably an old woman in this little Texas
town” . . . She was a young [woman] with lots of money . . . We ended up
married. I was married to a millionairess for two and a half years. (45)
In an effort to consolidate this story, a year later he retold it almost

verbatim to a Canadian newspaper (MacRae 2A). While Bukowski
did marry the “millionairess,” Barbara Fry, on October 30, 1955,
in a previous interview conducted in 1970, he introduced chrono-
logically inaccurate remarks to make this episode more appealing: “I
found this magazine called Harlequin . . . [The editor] probably likes
rhymes and lives in a little rosy hut with canaries—I think I’ll wake
her up and see what happens.’ I mailed this big packet of stuff . . . A
letter came back. A big fat one, informing me I was a GENIUS. And
they published forty of them” (Robson and Bryson 38). However,
evidence shows that only one poem by Bukowski was published in the
first Harlequin issue (winter 1956), when they were already married
and living together in Los Angeles.
Fry noted in that first issue that “the spring edition of Harlequin
will feature the unusual stories and poetry of Mr. Bukowski.” Several
poems and short stories did appear in the second issue in 1957, when
Bukowski was coediting the magazine. Quite likely, he had a say in
publishing his own work so generously. Indeed, as J. B. May confided
to Jim Hiner in July 1957, those stories and poems had been going
the rounds for almost five years. May, being in touch with most little
magazine editors, knew that Bukowski had unsuccessfully tried to
place them in a large number of periodicals. That issue of Harlequin,
May wryly concluded, should have been retitled Bukowski. That
Bukowski repeatedly claimed that Fry printed the material of a Los
Angeles genius in large quantities when she was living in Texas was
but a carefully honed myth, despite Bukowski’s misleading account in
a 1967 interview: “[Fry] started publishing all my stuff. We started
corresponding . . . and it ended in marriage” (Pavillard 9). Rather, they
married in October 1955, and then Fry, with Bukowski’s approval—or
perhaps at his insistence—published his work in those two Harlequin
issues in 1956–1957.
Bukowski, to probably round this myth off, mentioned that he
had found Harlequin by pure chance in Trace’s directory. However,
since he had used Trace as early as 1953 to submit to Accent, Embryo,
Folio, The Naked Ear, and other periodicals, it is quite possible that
he already knew of the existence of Harlequin. Although Fry printed
Bukowski’s poetry for the first time in late 1956, Harlequin had been
first recorded in Trace’s directory in August 1955. Fry requested con-
tributions in the October 1955 issue of Trace in the following fash-
ion: “We are accepting the best in contemporary poetry, drama, and
unusual fiction . . . We do not, by the way, use the whip of editorial
immunity to flagellate authors with sarcasm and discouragement”
(Fry 20). This request was sent to Trace before Fry and Bukowski
began to correspond, but by the time they were married on October
30, 1955, Bukowski was well aware of the magazine and it is quite
unlikely that he discovered it randomly. Claiming otherwise simply
made his story or myth more appealing: he accidentally finds a maga-
zine of traditional verse and submits his unconventional work, the
editor considers him a genius and publishes 40 poems and short sto-
ries before they even meet, and then they finally get married. Myth-
making was, indeed, Bukowski’s forte.
Harlequin was not only significant for having been the first peri-
odical to publish Bukowski after the ten-year drunk, and for having
allowed him to explore his self-mythologizing abilities, but it also
constituted a vehicle to reveal his spirited, judgmental editorial deci-
sions for the first time. Bukowski’s biographers did not fail to notice
his involvement as Harlequin coeditor: “He took revenge on little
magazine editors who had rejected his work by firing off rejections
when they submitted to Harlequin” (Miles, C. Bukowski 110). Leslie
Woolf Hedley, editor of the little magazine Inferno, was the target of
Bukowski’s uncommon editorial policies. Bukowski rejected a group
of poems by Hedley that Fry had accepted before Bukowski joined
Harlequin’s editorial team. At Bukowski’s insistence, Fry returned
the poems to Hedley, who was so infuriated that he threatened to
sue them.
Bukowski’s marriage with Fry was troubled and stormy, and their
many artistic disagreements visibly affected their editorial deci-
sions. Trace, being an open forum for editors, readily allowed them
to express their opinion on this particular issue. On the one hand,
Bukowski believed that rejecting Hedley’s poetry was iniquitous, but
he felt his decision was somewhat justified: “I believe technically I
was wrong in attempting to send back accepted poetry. I too have
had poetry returned after acceptance. I made no protest, feeling that
if magazines didn’t want me in their pages, I didn’t want to be there
either” (“Editors Write” 15). On the other, Fry was so distressed by
Hedley’s threat that, in an attempt to appease him, she published his
poems in the third issue of Harlequin, when Bukowski was no longer
involved in that project.
Bukowski and Fry subsequently divorced on March 18, 1958.
Although in interviews Bukowski shrewdly fueled the myth that
he had married a “millionairess,” and in poems such as “The Day I
Kicked a Bankroll Out the Window” he implied he had deliberately
relinquished Fry’s fortune, it was Fry the one who actually served
him with the divorce papers. Moreover, even though Fry’s family
was indeed wealthy, her personal situation was an altogether dif-

ferent one, and in 1960 she told Judson Crews that she was “only
a few hundred dollars from broke” (Ransom, May 13, 1960). Fry
tried to single-handedly print the little as a quarterly, but her efforts
were unsuccessful: the February 1958 issue of Trace listed Harlequin
as being published in Los Angeles, but according to the October/
November 1959 issue, Harlequin had relocated to Texas. By summer
1962, Harlequin “announced suspending” in Trace #46.
Bukowski rejected many other authors, including a young Carl
Larsen, who, in turn, perpetrated the same editorial sin: when Larsen
learned that Bukowski had rejected the poems he had submitted to
Harlequin, he returned to Bukowski a large batch of poems he had
accepted to publish as a chapbook. Bukowski took the art of rejection
seriously. Disgusted with the dozens of impersonal rejection slips he had
received over the years, he would send long letters of explanation instead
of the customary rejection note. As he wrote to Jon Webb, “I would stay
up half the night writing 2 or 3 page rejections of why I felt the poems
wouldn’t do—this instead of writing ‘sorry, no,’ or the printed rejection”
(McCormick, Outsider, December 2, 1960). Bukowski’s naivety became
evident when those long, explanatory rejection notes were met with the
most ferocious epistolary attacks he had ever received, as he explained
to his friend Douglas Blazek in 1964: “[T]hey wrote . . . WHAT GIVES
YOU A RIGHT TO TELL ME HOW TO WRITE? HORSE-SHIT!
etc. I was surprised at the venom” (Screams 117). Ironically enough,
one of those irate letters, by O. W. Crane [James Leyland], who copub-
lished Bukowski’s second chapbook under the 7 Poets Press imprint,
was reproduced in full in the second Harlequin issue next to the table
of contents. These mutually rewarding love/hate relationships were a
common trait in the little magazine scene.
Bukowski had mentioned several times in his correspondence that

editors had urged him to write a novel. For instance, as early as 1947,
Whit Burnett even suggested to him that he use his sketches to illus-
trate his first novel, and Bukowski’s reply was almost prophetic: “I
don’t think I could do a novel—I haven’t the urge, though I have
thought about it, and someday I might try it. Blessed Factotum would
be the title” (Princeton, April 22, 1947). Almost three decades later,
Black Sparrow Press published Factotum (1975), where the main
character endured the same adversities that Bukowski described
to Burnett in 1947. Similarly, in a letter to Corrington, Bukowski
explained to him: “On this last person who left [Jane Cooney Baker],
I might try my first novel, call it Woman, and then you will now”
(Centenary, February 1962). Black Sparrow Press published Women

in 1978. Although Baker was not featured in that book, the notion
of writing a novel about “women” had clearly intrigued Bukowski for
a long time.
In any case, Bukowski had already tried to write a long work of
fiction in late 1956, when he was coediting Harlequin with Fry. In a
letter to Carol Ely Harper, Experiment ’s editor, Bukowski notes that
he has “started [his] first novel, A Place to Sleep the Night ” (Harper,
November 13, 1956). Bibliographers and biographers do not record
this unfinished piece, except for Miles, who simply quotes Bukowski’s
letter verbatim: “In November 1956 [Bukowski] started his first
novel, A Place to Sleep the Night ” (C. Bukowski 110). A second, indi-
rect reference appears in a letter from Fry. At the beginning of her
relationship with Bukowski, she championed his work unflaggingly;
as she wrote to another editor in a snobbish tone: “Have you ever
heard of Whit Burnett, Cerise [sic] Crosby, Dolly Alden? They have
called Bukowski one of the most talented young writers in America.
Have you ever heard of Matrix ? Story ? He appeared in both, often.
Esquire, Doubleday-Doran and Embryo have asked for his short sto-
ries, a novel and his poetry” (Fullerton, April 1956). The information
provided by Fry is accurate since Matrix and Story had already pub-
lished Bukowski in the 1940s, and Esquire and Embryo had requested
his work in the early 1950s. Doubleday-Doran did ask Bukowski to
write a novel in early 1956, and, in all probability, A Place to Sleep the
Night was the unfinished outcome of such a request. Barely a year
later, Bukowski explained to Harper that the chapters submitted to
Doubleday were deemed “not good enough” for publication (Harper,
August 22, 1957), and the project was definitely abandoned.
In a rather expected change of heart, Bukowski condemned his
first attempt at a novel by giving the impression that he had not even
written a draft and sent it to Doubleday. He made it abundantly clear
to E. V. Griffith, who had just released his first poetry chapbook,
Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail, “I don’t like short stories. I am a poet:
So fuck Doubleday-Doran who asked me to send them a novel five or
ten years ago. I hate novels worse than short stories. I am a poet. I am
a poet. I am a poet. Ah ha ha ha ha!” (Delaware, December 1960).
Bukowski dismissed A Place to Sleep the Night because, as the corre-
spondence from the period reveals, he considered it to be as unsatis-
factory and amateurish as his earliest literary production. As already
noted, the Harlequin papers, as well as the Bukowski-Fry correspon-
dence, were apparently destroyed by a fire in Wheeler, Texas, hence it
is unlikely for this unfinished novel to surface hereafter.
The next relevant publication in Bukowski’s early career was Quixote,

edited by Jean Rikhoff Hills. This little magazine was especially sig-
nificant for several reasons. First, it encouraged Bukowski by being
the first periodical to publish his work in three different issues in the
mid- to late 1950s. Second, together with Harlequin, it was the only
little to print one of his short stories in the 1950s—Esquire, Accent,
or Hearse had rejected all his fiction efforts. Interestingly, “Hell, Yes,
the Hydrogen Bomb” appeared in Quixote #19 (1958), but it had
been previously submitted to Story in 1946 under a similar title: “Hell,
Yes, the Atom Bomb.” Finally, although biographers claim that Satis
(1962) was the first European magazine to publish Bukowski’s work,
Quixote had already done so in 1956 since the periodical was printed
in Gibraltar and then distributed in the United Kingdom and the
United States, earning Bukowski a much sought-after international
exposure. As Martin eloquently put it:
[Rikhoff] edited/published Quixote magazine under very difficult cir-

cumstances, living in England, and then I think in Spain, and finally
in the USA, while printing the mag in Gibraltar . . . Laid into one
of the [Quixote issues] was a leaflet describing the horrendous series
of calamities that accompanied the actual printing and distributing of
each issue. In addition, the cost of each issue would drive Ms. Hills
into nervous exhaustion and near-bankruptcy . . . To her credit she was
among the first to publish [Bukowski] in the late 1950s. (J. Martin,
“Write”)
Those leaflets, titled “Troubles of a Small Magazine,” were subse-

quently collected in the Quixote Anthology (1961). Bukowski was
not even mentioned in the anthology, but Rikhoff considered him
an important author nonetheless, as she stated when reminiscing
about Quixote: “We read everything that was submitted . . . and picked
out anything interesting. I must have found a spark of originality in
the stuff Bukowski sent up (how he even knew we existed, I don’t
know) . . . I had never heard of him before” (Rikhoff). Quite possibly,
Bukowski had seen Quixote listed in Trace’s directory.
That “spark of originality” captivated Judson Crews as well, one of
the most prolific and published authors of the 1940s and 1950s, who
edited several little magazines with unusual names such as The Deer
and Dachshund, The Flying Fish, Suck-Egg Mule: A Recalcitrant Beast,
Taos: A Deluxe Magazine of the Arts, and Vers Libre. As P. Martin
noted, the Naked Ear was “the prototypical little little magazine
as a periodical with one editor/publisher/distributor, operating on
a shoestring budget and publishing only highly original and/or
controversial talents” (715). By the time this “poeteditorpublisher”

finally printed a short poem by Bukowski in the Naked Ear #9 (1957),
unlike Rikhoff, he had heard of him for several years. As early as June
1953, Bukowski had sent a large batch of poems to Crews, who held
them for consideration for several months. Despite Crews’s failure
to reply to Bukowski’s inquiries about his submissions, he sent him
several groups of poems during 1953–1956, urging Crews to publish
them or he would destroy them if rejected. The poem that Crews
eventually chose to publish was not “controversial” nor “original,”
and it particularly annoyed Bukowski that Crews changed the title.
After quoting the poem in its entirety in a letter to Sheri Martinelli,
Bukowski asked her somewhat rhetorically: “Can’t you see that the
changing of ‘Layover’ to ‘Lay Over’ violates the essence of the poem?”
(Beerspit 187).
Bukowski’s dissatisfaction notwithstanding, this little magazine
appearance had a considerable impact on his career as Marvin Malone
read him there for the first time, and he subsequently published
Bukowski’s work in most Wormwood Review issues. Malone, an avid
little magazine collector, always qualified this periodical in flattering
terms: “Though Naked Ear was very modest in size and format, it is
now regarded as a little magazine classic” (“Bukowski Comes” 14).
Indeed, the Naked Ear is not only considered a “classic” but it is also
a much coveted collectible: “Because of their scarcity . . . and because
they contain early work by a number of now-established poets, all
issues have become collector’s items” (P. Martin 715). So rare is a
copy of the Naked Ear #9 that it commands several hundred dollars
whenever auctioned.
Existaria, another highly collectible little magazine, published
three poems by Bukowski in its seventh issue (September/October
1957), which had been previously rejected by Accent in 1954. The
editor, Carl Larsen, printed Bukowski’s work in other periodicals such
as Brand “X” (1962) or rongWrong (1961–1962), and he belonged to
the 7 Poets Press that released Bukowski’s second chapbook, Longshot
Pomes for Broke Players (1961). Existaria was definitely a little maga-
zine that encouraged uncommon and controversial poetry by authors
such as Bukowski, and its publishing approach was radically different
from that of the academic journals of the time. As Larsen put it: “[We]
embraced existentialism . . . hence the name of our publications, ‘exis-
taria’ and ‘rongWrong.’ There was an esprit d’corps among we poets of
protest that seemed rare” (“rongWrong/Bukowski”). James Singer,
who, together with Jean Arsenault, O. W. Crane, Emilie Glenn, Carl
Larsen, Harland Ristau, and an unidentified seventh editor, founded
the 7 Poets Press to publish alternative authors, believed that their

imprint was driven by a mixture of Existentialism and Dadaism: “It
was a Dada thing . . . We were in the midst of the Beat Generation
and, for my part, I found a lot of its navel gazing and public mastur-
bation boring, obvious, and—worst of all—humorless” (Singer). It is
unlikely that Bukowski submitted to the 7 Poets Press because of the
Dadaist association. Rather, he was attracted to the humorous nature
of their publications. Incidentally, as in most committees, the 7 Poets
Press editors did not appreciate Bukowski’s work in the same fash-
ion: Larsen claimed that he printed all his submissions, while Singer
rejected the poetry sent to Emergent in 1957.
Bukowski’s next periodical appearance was a remarkable one.
Semina, put together by a truly independent artist, Wallace Berman,
was an “iconic document of its time . . . providing an outlet for some
of the most innovative voices of the 1950s and 1960s” (Duncan 9).
Interspersing poetry with artwork, laboriously hand-press, and mailed
out in decorated envelopes, it clearly favored avant-garde, experimen-
tal material. The first issue came out in 1955, and Berman used it as
part of his exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. A drawing
by artist Marjorie Cameron was deemed obscene, the copy of Semina
was seized by the authorities, and Berman was charged a 150-dollar
fine in June 1957. The episode was duly voiced in a typed note, which
was pasted in the next issue of the magazine.
It is not known how Bukowski learned about Semina. He prob-
ably saw the periodical listed in Trace #21 (April 1957) or perhaps
he read the news about the Ferus Gallery raid, and the censorship
incident compelled him to try Semina. Although he submitted several
poems, as per custom, only one of them made it to the magazine. As
Berman’s wife recalled, “Wallace liked his work . . . Bukowski sent a
bunch of poems and there wasn’t a return address! Wallace tried to
locate Bukowski, but no one we knew had any information about
him” (Berman). The fact that Bukowski’s poetry came through rather
unexpectedly reinforces the notion that he was a completely unknown
author at the time. In any case, his poem “Mine” appeared in the
second issue, which came out in December 1957 in San Francisco.
Bukowski was published alongside literary giants such as Herman
Hesse, Paul Eluard, Jean Cocteau, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Valéry,
and the ubiquitous Judson Crews. Since most of his heroes—Artaud,
Celine, Hamsun, or Dostoevsky—were European, he was definitely
in good company. Bukowski submitted to Semina on a number of
occasions, but Berman did not print his poetry again—a large part of
the Semina/Berman archives was destroyed in a mudslide, and there
is no surviving correspondence to shed light on this obscure period

of Bukowski’s early career.
Shortly after the contribution to Semina, the winter 1957–1958
issue of the Beloit Poetry Journal, although not a milestone in
Bukowski’s career, became a relevant periodical appearance for sev-
eral reasons. On the one hand, it was the first academic journal to
champion Bukowski’s work, an important point often overlooked by
those critics who try to prove that the quarterlies did not publish
Bukowski’s material. During the 1950s and early 1960s Bukowski
submitted the poems he termed traditional or poetic to those little
magazines, such as Descant, Epos, Flame, or Scimitar and Song, that
would readily accept pieces that seemed unbukowskian. Indeed, the
poem published in the Beloit Poetry Journal, “Treason,” constitutes
an attempt at a more formal versification based on the reiterated use
of dense language and imagery, an uncharacteristically ornate style
that Bukowski finally abandoned in the late 1960s. The poem begins
thus: “Colyngbourne crossed a King with a poem / and inherited
new gallows on Tower Hill / . . . ah, but visions and dragons and noth-
ings!” (4–5).
The editorial choices made while assembling the winter 1957–1958
issue of the Beloit Poetry Journal eventually benefited Bukowski’s
career. Marion Stocking, one of the editors of the journal, claimed
that it was J. B. May who proposed Bukowski’s poem for that spe-
cial issue: “I remember we picked ‘Treason’ having read it aloud, for
its energy, its dramatic force, its imagination and—of course—its
political stance . . . May selected poems for our special issue on the
English ‘Movement’ and the U.S. ‘Underground.’ So he sought out
‘Treason’” (Stocking, “Letter”). However, a chronological review of
the decisions involved in selecting Bukowski’s poem offers a somewhat
different view of the events: In June 1957, Stocking asked May to
assemble the special issue of the journal; in July 1957, May suggested
11 authors, such as Curtis Zahn or Stuart Perkoff, but not Bukowski,
for their inclusion in the magazine; on October 28, 1957, Stocking
asked May his opinion about Bukowski: “What do you think of this
fellow Bukowski? We have a large and most fascinating batch of MSS.
from him” (Fullerton). The following day, May’s reply was unequivo-
cal: “You mention Bukowski . . . I’d like at least to cast a ‘nay’ vote.
Should it seem odd to you that I do this without seeing the work in
question, I can only say that various things have caused me to doubt
his basic sincerity” (Fullerton).
May, not having read some of the poems to be used in that issue,
went on to write an introduction to the “underground” section,
which, not surprisingly, editors Robert Glaubert and Stocking found

“incomprehensible . . . [and] hideously opaque” (Fullerton). Finally,
on November 4, 1957, Stocking explained to May that the journal
would run Bukowski’s poem in spite of his objection: “We weighted
your opinion very heavily, but ‘Treason’ seemed to us just too power-
ful a thing to reject. It packed six times the punch of the poems that
would have replaced it if we’d not taken it” (Fullerton). So powerful
was it that it was prominently displayed as the opening piece of that
winter 1957–1958 issue.
In an unexpected volte-face, May allowed Bukowski to voice his
literary opinions in several Trace issues in 1959–1960, and he even
reviewed Bukowski’s first chapbook, Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail,
in positive terms in Trace in 1961. Perversely enough, Bukowski
expressed his gratitude by publicly sneering at May—and a thinly
disguised Leslie Woolf Hedley—in the poem “I Am Visited by an
Editor and a Poet,” first published in Hearse #7 (1961), where the
value of literature is discussed in rather skeptical terms, and the poet
sarcastically wonders “if we are writing poetry or all huddling in /
one big tent / clasping assholes” (Roominghouse 217–18).
Intermission: Censorship Pays Off

The Beloit Poetry Journal was crucial in Bukowski’s career for yet
another factor: it was the first magazine in a series of periodi-
cals featuring Bukowski’s work that would be suppressed or cen-
sored and even seized by the police. Northwest Review, Earth Rose,
Renaissance, or d. a. levy’s literary ventures were further instances of
little magazines or small press publications censored or confiscated
by the authorities. Ironically enough, those acts of censorship were
not directly triggered by Bukowski’s controversial or obscene mate-
rial and, yet, those polemical periodicals contributed noticeably to
make him more popular on the literary scene. As May pointed out,
“[A]bout the only times the general public has been made aware
of the [alternative publications] have been when their editors were
hauled into court for publishing sexual art or permitting contribu-
tors to use precise expressions such as fuck or cunt. The result was
usually legal badgering and extinction” (24). Indeed, Bukowski’s
involvement in some little magazines or underground newspapers
proved ill-fated to their editors. While in some cases the suppressed
periodical resurfaced under a different title, others had to suspend
publication to avoid bankruptcy.
The inception of the winter 1957–1958 issue of the Beloit Poetry

Journal took place after Marion Stocking asked J. B. May that he
request material to the most noteworthy underground poets of the
period. Stocking always stressed May’s contribution to that issue: “I
think it was Chad Walsh who suggested that we fill out the issue with
contrasting poems from the West Coast poets calling themselves the
‘underground.’ . . . James Boyer May . . . assembled a stack of poems
from which we selected the ones in the issue” (Stocking, “Bukowski”).
The focus of the subsequent controversy was not Bukowski’s work,
but a poem titled “Not” by Gil Orlovitz. Interestingly, Stocking and
the other Beloit Poetry Journal editors had previously discarded sev-
eral poems by Orlovitz and ended up selecting the one that would
cause a stir. As Stocking confided to May: “Orlovitz was a problem.
We had five or six we wanted to use . . . and finally chose this as most
‘Orlovitzy’” (Fullerton, November 4, 1957). When the Beloit college
conservative board of trustees read the line “Not Jesus jerking off,
not Mohamed with his coeds” (Orlovitz 7) as well as the other British
“movement” and United States “underground” material, they imme-
diately ceased to support the magazine, which they had sponsored
since its creation.
However, according to editor Lee Sharkey, the Beloit Poetry Journal
was not “hurt” and since then it “has always been independent of any
formal or financial institutional affiliation, and the college has long
since repented” (Sharkey). Whether the Beloit college board did actu-
ally regret that decision or not, or Bukowski contributed to the Beloit
Poetry Journal debacle or not, did not seem to be his main concern.
In a letter to Jon Webb he distorted facts to become the main actor in
the story: “I don’t want to brag . . . but it was after my appearance in
the Beloit Poetry Journal ’s ‘Underground Edition’ that the university
withdrew its support. I had nothing to do with the Chicago Review
deal, tho, I’m unhappy to report” (McCormick, Outsider, November
1960). Humorous tone notwithstanding, Bukowski considered it was
admirable and beneficial to take part in those controversial events;
hence his ironic tone for not having participated in the Chicago
Review episode— the 1958 Chicago Review issue, devoted to the
San Francisco Renaissance—was suppressed because the University
of Chicago did not want a chapter from William Burrough’s Naked
Lunch printed in the journal; the censored material was subsequently
incorporated into the first Big Table issue in 1959.
Bukowski submitted several poems to the Beloit Poetry Journal
despite Barbara Fry’s warnings, as he explained to J. B. May in a 1959
letter reproduced in Trace #33: “Miss Fry, at one time, advised me not
to appear with the Beloit Poetry Journal group in the Underground
Edition because ‘some of them are known Communists.’ I don’t
know anything about that. I judge a poem or a group by the quality
and vitality of its Art” (“Editors Write” 16). Bukowski’s stance reveals
his view regarding submissions: all magazines, littles, or journals were
potential outlets, regardless of their political bias or lack thereof.
Despite the unusually ungodly, even obscene, nature of a con-
siderable part of Bukowski’s output, his work was seldom censored.
Bukowski was shrewd enough to submit his controversial material
to the littles and his more traditional or poetic production to the
highbrow quarterlies or conservative magazines. His submissions
were adoringly accepted or furiously rejected, but rarely censored.
Mainstream was a noteworthy exception. The editorial board of the
journal asked Walter Lowenfels to assemble a symposium on the cur-
rent status of the little magazines in the United States. Lowenfels
contacted several editors, publishers, and writers, and their untitled
contributions were published in three Mainstream issues (November
1962, December 1962, and June 1963) under the generic title of
“Little Magazines in America: A Symposium.” Among the con-
tributors were William Corrington, Jon Webb, Curtis Zahn, Gilbert
Sorrentino, Leslie Woolf Hedley, and Marvin Malone.
Coincidentally enough, Bukowski’s essay was placed at the end of
the third installment of the symposium, and it was the only piece to
be censored, as noted by an unnamed editor: “Charles Bukowski’s
reply is the only one which we have censored for obscenity, and there
only in a few places” (“Conclusion of Symposium” 38). The editor
argued that since Bukowski confessed to having written the contribu-
tion while inebriated, the journal was entitled to replace the obscene
words with “XXXX’s” because “readers will [not] be drinking when
they read him” (38). However, Robert Forrey, Mainstream’s manag-
ing editor at the time, recalled events differently: “Lowenfels [prob-
ably] did the censoring before he submitted it to Mainstream because
he knew that otherwise the piece would be rejected . . . the editors
would not have dared publish an unexpurgated version of Bukowski’s
piece” (Forrey). Bukowski’s contribution about the little magazines
was, by his own standards, relatively mild in both form and content.
Yet, Forrey claimed that, “even expurgated, Bukowski’s is the most
‘decadent’ thing that appeared in Mainstream during my tenure.”
Barely a few months later, the Fall 1963 Northwest Review issue
became Bukowski’s next involvement in a periodical that ended up
being suppressed for its “decadent” contents. Bukowski’s work had
been previously featured in three Northwest Review issues in 1962–

1963, all of them edited by Edward van Aelstyn. Van Aelstyn was
instrumental in transforming the journal into a more experimental
magazine by incorporating dissonant voices such as Bukowski’s. As
Juliet McLaren put it in a special section about the Northwest Review
incident published in Line, “[W]hat was at the beginning of his ten-
ure a fairly standard university journal with a strong west coast ori-
entation, had become by the winter of 1963–64 an iconoclastic and
adventurous quarterly with a relatively radical political and literary
content” (4). Indeed, the infamous fall 1963 issue featured the first
English translation of Antonin Artaud’s “To Have Done with the
Judgment of God,” poetry by Philip Whalen, an interview with Fidel
Castro, a poem by Bukowski, and the oft-quoted article by William
Corrington, “Charles Bukowski and the Savage Surfaces.” Apparently,
McLaren argued, “sexuality, sedition, and blasphemy all at once was
too heady a mixture for that time and place” (6).
After its actual release in January 1964, the journal was temporar-
ily suppressed by the university. Van Aelstyn reminisced at length
about the outcome of such a decision: “NWR [Fall 1963] became a
totem of all the right wing in the state hated. Their publications fea-
tured stories about the issue . . . saying Northwest Review was commu-
nist, atheist, and pornographic, and that taxpayer funds should fund
such a magazine was intolerable . . . NWR’s publication would be sus-
pended indefinitely because it had become too controversial” (“NWR
history”). Bukowski was obviously delighted in being published in yet
another “communist” periodical, and, along with some other authors
such as Michael McClure or George Bowering, he sent a long letter of
sympathy to van Aelstyn where he attacked the institution: “And that
is what a university is—not FORWARD but BACKWARD!” (“Letter
to Aelstyn”). Despite those letters of support, van Aelstyn chose to
resign from his Northwest Review post and start a new venture: “I
wrote to the poets whose work I had accepted for future issues of
NWR and asked their permission to take their poetry with me to build
a new literary magazine, Coyote’s Journal. They all agreed” (“NWR
history”). Shortly thereafter, Coyote’s Journal published its first issue
and the Northwest Review was resurrected under a reformed editorial
board.
The Beloit Poetry Journal, Mainstream, and the Northwest Review
were college-sponsored journals when they printed Bukowski’s work,
whereas Earth Rose, which brought about a police raid, was a truly
independent, alternative little magazine published by a young law stu-
dent, Steve Richmond, in California. Richmond had been so deeply
impressed by a Bukowski poem titled “Freedom,” first published in

Olé #1 (1964), that he decided to launch his own magazine if only
to reprint that poem. Not only did Richmond publish “Freedom”
in Earth #1 (1965) as well as a group of poems and a lengthy, pas-
sionate essay in Earth # 2 (1966), but he also printed Bukowski’s
work in other periodicals such as the Earth Rose (1966), Stance in
the 1980s, or Moxie in the early 1990s, and he even wrote a memoir
of Bukowski’s life, Spinning Off Bukowski (1996). Their epistolary
relationship was so intense in the 1960s that a volume of their cor-
respondence was considered for publication, although it was finally
discarded. Bukowski would in turn show his appreciation by writing
the foreword to two Richmond books, Hitler Painted Roses (1966)
and Earth Rose (1974).
As in the previous cases, the focus of the controversy was not
Bukowski’s work, but a cover deemed immoral and offending by the
authorities. Richmond chose to print the words “FUCK HATE” in
bold type against a white background on the front cover. The font
size of that explicit headline was so large that it took half a page. Not
content with those two opening words, Richmond added an explana-
tory statement: “Whereby, on this day we able minded creators do
hereby tell you, the Establishment: FUCK YOU IN THE MOUTH.
WE’VE HEARD ENOUGH OF YOUR BULLSHIT . . . [signed]
beings of beauty” (The Earth Rose #1). Ten thousand copies of the
Earth Rose #1 were printed and distributed via Richmond’s Earth
Books bookstore located in Santa Monica, California. As Cherkovski
explained, “[O]ver a two-week period ten people were arrested by the
Santa Monica police for distributing what the authorities considered
an obscene publication” (Hank 171). Not even a month had elapsed
since the publication of the Earth Rose, when on November 1, 1966,
Richmond’s “shop was raided by the police . . . Two dozen books,
including Hank’s, were seized as being obscene” (Miles, C. Bukowski
153). Many alternative editors and publishers visited Richmond’s
bookstore, and it soon would be known in the underground literary
scene that Bukowski’s work had been confiscated by the authorities.
In all probability, Bukowski was ecstatic because he knew that a police
raid would contribute, significantly so, to his growing popularity.
Similarly, less than two months later, Bukowski’s chapbook The
Genius of the Crowd was to be one of the items seized by the police
during a raid in Jim Lowell’s Asphodel bookshop in Cleveland. The
Genius of the Crowd (1966) had been published by the driving force
of the mimeo revolution, the “poeteditorpublisher” d. a. levy, via his
7 Flowers Press. As in Richmond’s case, d. a. levy had already printed
Bukowski’s work in the Marrahwannah Quarterly in 1965, and he

reviewed Bukowski’s “Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live
with Beasts” in the Mary Jane Quarterly in 1966, and published his
poetry again in the Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle in 1968.
Bukowski, in turn, contributed an untitled prose piece to a special
tribute issue published by the Serif in late 1971 in memoriam d. a.
levy, who had apparently committed suicide in 1968.
The Asphodel bookshop raid in 1966 was not completely unex-
pected because the police had been investigating levy since the
Marrahwannah Quarterly had first come out in 1964. The owner of
the bookstore, Jim Lowell, explained to Marvin Malone that “they
confiscated 9 cartons of books and periodicals and searched the place
for narcotics. Of course, they didn’t find any” (qtd. in J. Smith, Art
62). Among the seized items was Bukowski’s The Genius of the Crowd.
In true mimeo tradition, levy printed only 103 copies of Bukowski’s
chapbook, and 63 of them were confiscated and destroyed by the
Cleveland police. Given its scarcity, it has become one of the most
coveted Bukowski’s publications. Bukowski did not forget this epi-
sode, and he penned a prose piece for A Tribute to Jim Lowell (1967),
where he claimed that “‘obscenity’ is the word they use to excuse
their own rot in order to raid the works and outposts of creative
men . . . the creative artist has always been continually harassed by
officialdom” (“Untitled”), an obvious reference to the police opera-
tion. As Dorbin summed it up, A Tribute was published as a “funds-
raiser for James Russell Lowell . . . in response to the harassment he,
d.a. levy & others were subjected to by the ‘authorities’ of that city”
(A Bibliography 66). The tribute included contributions by relevant
authors such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, James Laughlin, Michael
McClure, d. a. levy, Hubert Selby, Denise Levertov, Charles Olson,
and Gilbert Sorrentino, who unconditionally supported Lowell and
condemned the authorities.
Bukowski’s second incursion into editorial tasks proved to be hap-
less. In 1968, John Bryan asked Bukowski to edit Renaissance in
an attempt to revive a little magazine he had published in the early
1960s. Bryan had generously printed Bukowski’s poems, short sto-
ries, prose columns, drawings, and letters in Renaissance, Notes from
Underground, Open City Press, and Open City in the preceding years.
The first Renaissance. A Magazine of the Arts insert, edited by Bryan,
appeared in Open City #52 in May 1968. Two months later, Bukowski
explained to Steve Richmond that Bryan had requested him that he
assemble the second issue: “I can see why he didn’t want the job. He
had a bucketful of half-ass submissions. So now I am in the process
of writing various people in order to get good stuff” (Richmond,

“Unpublished” July 23, 1968). After bitterly complaining about the
poor quality of most of the material received, Bukowski, who had free
rein to include the poems and short stories he deemed good enough
for publication, edited the insert, which appeared in Open City #70
in September 1968.
The second Renaissance issue featured a poem by Bukowski, “Take
Me Out to the Ballgame,” but the cause of the subsequent troubles
and predicaments was “Skinny Dynamite,” a sexually explicit short
story by Jack Micheline, which was “what the FBI was waiting for.
They tipped off the county and the Sheriff’s deputies arrested Bryan
for publishing obscenity” (Miles, C. Bukowski 160). Decades later,
Bryan himself would put it succinctly: “Bukowski played the edi-
tor and I went to jail” (31). Indeed, Bukowski’s editorial decisions
ultimately caused the demise of Open City, where his “Notes of a
Dirty Old Man” columns had been published regularly during almost
two years. As Miles explained, “[T]he legal fees bankrupted Open
City . . . Hank donated $100 to the bust fund but the lawyers charged
$10,000” (C. Bukowski 160). As in most cases, Bukowski expressed a
somewhat different view in the acerbic short story “The Birth, Life,
and Death of an Underground Newspaper.”
While it was true that debts, distribution problems, and the fine
for having published Micheline’s short story contributed to the disap-
pearance of Open City, Bukowski suggested that the newspaper’s clos-
ing was Bryan’s decision, thus downplaying the impact of the financial
issues involved. In the short story Bryan wrote a note that read: “The
paper has already fulfilled its artistic purpose. Politically, it was never
too effective anyway . . . As an artist, I must turn away from a work
which does not grow” (“The Birth” 128). Be that as it may, Bukowski
always considered Open City a pivotal periodical in his career, and he
lamented its demise, whether it was caused by his editorial decisions
or not: “Open City was the best of them all. It was a sad and terrible
day when John Bryan had to close it down,” he poignantly concluded
in a 1987 interview (Backwords, “The World’s” 1).
Bukowski’s presence in controversial issues of journals such as the
Beloit Poetry Journal, Mainstream, or Northwest Review, or in radical
little magazines or mimeographed chapbooks seized by the authori-
ties, as was the case of the Earth Rose or the Genius of the Crowd,
or his unfortunate role as editor of Renaissance, contributed to
make him considerably more popular in the American underground
scene. News of periodicals suppressed, censored, confiscated by the
police, or shut down on obscenity charges were rapidly spread via
the alternative editorial networks of the time, especially in the case

of large-circulation newspapers such as Open City or publications
where d. a. levy was involved, who became an idolized poète maudit
shortly after his suicide in 1968. Bukowski’s increasing reputation as
a popular outsider was definitely strengthened by being associated
with such events. As J. B. May noted, audiences only became aware of
those alternative publications when their publishers were prosecuted
for having printed material deemed obscene or offensive. Before long,
Bukowski’s work would reach those audiences, and the impact that
those periodicals had on consolidating his popularity proved to be
invaluable.
C H A P T E R 3
A Towering Giant with Small Feet
Early Magazines and Chapbooks (1958–1962)

Bukowski’s first periodical appearances in the 1940s, such as Story,
Portfolio, or Matrix, after four years of constant rejection by Esquire,
Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and other well-
established magazines, paved the way for his slow transition into
acceptance during the mid- to late 1950s. That transition period,
in turn, was instrumental in encouraging Bukowski to increase his
already prolific output and submit his work to the emerging little
magazines that were trying to topple the Modernism-influenced
journals and quarterlies that still prevailed on the literary scene. By
the very late 1950s, after the Beloit Poetry Journal episode, Bukowski
began to bombard the littles unrelentingly, and, despite the custom-
ary rejections and his dissatisfaction with most editors’ approach to
publishing, his hunger for exposure was finally rewarded by the mid-
1960s, when the mimeograph revolution reached its peak and his
work was featured in so many alternative publications that he ended
up being the most published author of the decade. Most importantly,
the popularity he had achieved by the late 1960s, together with the
faith some editors had in his prolific production, allowed him to quit
his regular job at the post office in early January 1970 to become a
full-time professional writer.
Several periodicals were turning points or had a special impor-
tance in Bukowski’s career in the 1958–1969 decade. For instance,
Quicksilver. A Quarterly Magazine of Poetry, edited by Grace Ross
and Mabel M. Kuykendall, published Bukowski in seven issues of the
magazine from 1958 to 1962. Professor Corrington, who champi-
oned Bukowski in the early 1960s by writing insightful essays about
his work and who persuaded him to appear in a joint Corrington/
Bukowski chapbook that was finally aborted, read him for the first
time in Quicksilver. Likewise, Hearse was a key periodical because not
only did it feature Bukowski’s work from 1958 to 1972, but its edi-
tor, E. V. Griffith, also published Bukowski’s first chapbook, Flower,
Fist and Bestial Wail, in October 1960. Bukowski had first submitted
old material to this little magazine. “Some Notes of Dr. Klarstein,”
a poem published in the February 1958 issue, had been rejected by
Accent in 1954. The short stories that Hearse did not accept in 1958
had been written in the early 1950s as well. Yet, Griffith sensed that
Bukowski’s work had a unique quality to it and solicited more mate-
rial from him. Bukowski gladly complied, and Griffith published him
regularly in Hearse in the 1960s and early 1970s, as well as in over
15 Poetry Now issues from 1974 to 1983, including a special 1974
issue showcasing an interview with Bukowski, several poems, and his
photograph on the front cover.
While Approach and Compass Review also published Bukowski in
1958, his appearance in the San Francisco Review definitely had a
larger impact on his career. Edited by Roy Miller, George Hitchcock,
and June Oppen Degnan, the first issue featured such authors as Gil
Orlovitz, William Saroyan, e. e. cummings, Curtis Zahn, Bertrand
Russell, William Carlos Williams, and an unknown Bukowski. Yet,
Hitchcock’s retrospective assessment of the writers published in the
San Francisco Review seems somewhat harsh: “We published twelve
issues, some good authors, and a fair amount of rubbish” (“On
Kayak” 441). Quite likely, Bukowski fell into that rubbish category
as Hitchcock did not particularly like his work, as he unequivocally
remarked in 1978: “We’re getting poets who are highly venerated by I
don’t care for—Charles Bukowski, for example . . . I think he’s terrible”
(Hitchcock, “Interview” 32). Nevertheless, Bukowski’s own recollec-
tion of that first San Francisco Review issue was more rewarding and
emotive, almost uncharacteristically so. As he reminisced in the early
1990s, “The San Francisco Review, Winter, 1958, I was also drink-
ing heavily . . . Some table of contents. My ass is in there with William
Saroyan, e.e. cummings, William Carlos Williams and Bertrand
Russell. Quite a gang . . . So curious, so odd, so sentimental to see this
one” (S. Harrison, February 2, 1991). In stark contrast, the table of
contents of the 1958 Approach issue where Bukowski was published
in lists a series of completely unknown authors. Bukowski submitted
his work to all sorts of magazines, irrespective of their circulation,
political inclinations, literary aspirations, or how famous the authors
printed alongside him were.
The following year, the number of little magazines with Bukowski’s
work doubled that of 1958. Views, Wanderlust, The Half Moon, Flame,
and The Galley Sail Review were relatively unimportant periodicals.
A TOWERING GIANT WITH SMALL FEET 89
He appeared in two Trace issues, and E. V. Griffith published him in

Hearse again. Griffith was so captivated by Bukowski’s poetry that
he persuaded his brother, Jon Griffith, to print it in his own little,
Gallows. Epos was especially relevant; on the one hand, it was the ideal
outlet for Bukowski’s more traditional output, as he used to call it; on
the other, the editors, Will Tullos and Evelyn Thorne, were extremely
proficient in that they accepted or rejected submissions and then pub-
lished their magazine in record time. The clumsiness of most little
magazine editors infuriated Bukowski, and he was pleased to send his
work to Epos, the San Francisco Review, or those mimeos that pub-
lished his work efficiently. Furthermore, Tullos and Thorne released
a special Bukowski-only Epos issue in 1962.
Odyssey was a little magazine edited by R. R. Cuscaden and Ronald
Offen in Chicago. Cuscaden would subsequently publish Bukowski
in several Midwest issues as well as the Run with the Hunted chap-
book in 1962. Offen persuaded Jay Robert Nash to print Bukowski’s
poetry and essays, and reviews of his work in Literary Times, a rela-
tively large-circulation Chicago newspaper. Offen summed it up thus:
“At that time [1958] R. R. Cuscaden and I were publishing Odyssey . . .
Bukowski’s work (two poems) came in over the transom and created
quite a stir . . . After the demise of that magazine I became the execu-
tive editor of the tabloid Literary Times in Chicago in which I con-
tinued to publish and promote Bukowski’s work” (“Remembering”
59). The stir caused by Bukowski’s poems could be explained by the
traditional nature of the work published by Cuscaden and Offen
in Odyssey. Despite the magazine being subtitled “Explorations in
Contemporary Poetry and the Arts,” Offen was taken aback by the
subject matter and style of “I Live Too Near a Slaughterhouse” and
“When Hugo Wolf Went Mad,” the two poems published in that
last Odyssey issue: “We’d been receiving mainly academic and pastoral
poems and here comes this guy with his really tough stance and lines
that leaped off the page . . . Here was a combination of a noir under-
ground sensibility and one that was in touch with the great tradition
of poetry” (“Bukowski”). Offen’s assessment is probably more accu-
rate than most critical studies about Bukowski since it encompasses
his outsider status as well as his keen eye for more traditional work.
The 1959 issue of Coastlines featured a poem by Bukowski, “Dow
Jones: Down,” but he had been previously rejected on several occasions
by editors Mel Weisburd and Gene Frumkin. Coastlines was one of
the many late 1950s magazines influenced by The New Critics; quite
likely, Bukowski had first sent Weisburd and Frumkin his more poetic
material, but it had not been accepted. However, they did publish him
when they perceived his work was more akin to the changing nature
of the magazine. As Weisburd put it: “We started out breaking away
from the New Criticism and academic quarterlies and lightening up
on our left wing overseriousness . . . We wanted to project a tone of
spirited creativity in which upbeat and downbeat were in balance . . . I
kept rejecting the [poems] until a time came when they fit the zeit-
geist ” (Weisburd). The Galley Sail Review editor, Stanley McNail,
introduced Bukowski to Alvaro Cardona Hine in the early 1960s, and
Hine regularly published Bukowski’s fiction in girlie magazines such
as Pix and Adam in the early 1970s; coincidentally, Frumkin, who
knew McNail as well, was harshly depicted in “I Just Write Poetry So
I Can Go to Bed With Girls,” a short story by Bukowski published in
1971 in Rogue, yet another erotic magazine. Some of the editors who
unflaggingly championed Bukowski’s work in the 1960s, such as John
Bryan or Jon Webb, would be mercilessly criticized in the short sto-
ries that he wrote in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Having published
Bukowski in Coastlines was no safeguard against his brutal—usually
undeserved—attacks, as Frumkin would learn.
Nomad printed several poems by Bukowski in 1959 in its inau-
gural issue. Editors Anthony Linick and Donald Factor declared in
Trace that “Nomad was brought into being to accomplish one sole
purpose—to provide a place to new literary talent” (Factor 35). As in
the case of Odyssey and Coastlines, Nomad editors were pleased to dis-
cover a talented new voice in the figure of a still unknown Bukowski.
His work stood out from the other submissions: “In our naivety we
believed that we would get lots of entries that had the freshness,
the honesty, the narrative flow that we could see Bukowski’s poems
reflected so well . . . Of course, most of what we got was undistin-
guished in the extreme” (Linick, “Nomad/Bukowski”). The follow-
ing year, Nomad published one of Bukowski’s first known essays,
“Manifesto: A Call for Our Own Critics,” an acerbic commentary
reviewed in Trace #39 where he claimed in a mocking tone that “five
or six old men, craggy and steatopygous in University chairs, will be
the hierophants of our poetic universe” (6). The unpublished cor-
respondence to Linick reveals that Bukowski had submitted several
essays to the magazine before Linick and Factor finally settled on the
“Manifesto,” which shows that Bukowski took seriously his attempt
at criticizing an institution apparently entrenched in tradition such
as the “University.” By allowing Bukowski to voice his literary val-
ues, Nomad editors encouraged him to explore that arena, which he
delved into in subsequent essays in Simbolica and Literary Times in
the early to mid-1960s.
William Corrington discovered Bukowski’s work in a 1958 Quicksilver

issue, but the poem that definitely captivated him appeared in the sum-
mer 1959 issue of the same little. “The Day I Kicked a Bankroll out the
Window” begins thus:
and, I said, you can take your rich aunts and uncles
and grandfathers and fathers
and all their lousy oil
and their seven lakes
and their wild turkey
and buffalo
and the whole state of Texas,
meaning, your crow-blasts
and your Saturday night boardwalks,
and your 2-bit library
and your crooked councilmen
and your pansy artists-
you can take all these
and your weekly newspaper
and your famous tornadoes,
and your filthy floods
and all your yowling cats
and your subscription to Time,
and shove them, baby,
shove them. (Roominghouse 73)
Corrington was probably thinking of this poem when he claimed

that Bukowski’s poetry was “the spoken voice nailed to paper” in the
introduction to It Catches My Heart in Its Hands (“midflight” 5).
Corrington also penned “Charles Bukowski and the Savage Surfaces,”
published in the Northwest Review (fall 1963), and “Charles Bukowski:
Three Poems,” for The Outsider #3 (1963), both lucid articles about
Bukowski’s early work. However, Corrington’s undeniable admira-
tion sprang from his reading of “The Day I Kicked a Bankroll out the
Window” in that 1959 Quicksilver issue.
In 1960, Bukowski was published again in Coastlines, Epos, Nomad,
The Galley Sail Review, Trace, and Wanderlust, and his work also
appeared in at least two college journals, Literary Artpress, and Impetus,
edited by Guy Owen, who used his poetry again in Southern Poetry
Review in 1965. Two early mimeographed magazines, Merlin’s Magic
and Simbolica, printed his material several times; the latter, edited
by Ignace Ingianni, not only published Bukowski’s poetry, but also
two of his “dialogues,” as he called them. According to Dorbin, the
lengthy dialogue that appeared in issue 19 was a “rambling tour-de-

force, part stream-of-consciousness, part catechism” (A Bibliography
63). “Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook” represented one of the
very few attempts at fiction by Bukowski published in the early 1960s,
and it became the title of a collection of short stories and essays released
by City Lights in 2008. Both Merlin’s Magic and Simbolica had a small
circulation, fewer than 350 copies per issue (Rather 47; 50), which,
together with the brittle nature of the publication—it disintegrated
over time, especially in the case of Merlin’s Magic —might account for
the scant number of issues available in libraries and private hands.
Targets was also a significant little magazine, edited by W. L.
Garner and Lloyd Alpaugh, that published Bukowski’s poetry in nine
issues in the very early 1960s as well as the much sought-after “A
Signature of Charles Bukowski Poetry” and “Bukowski Signature 2”
detachable booklets, published in 1960–1961, and commonly called
“Signature 1” and “Signature 2.” They are both listed in Fogel’s
“Top 20 Bukowski Rarities,” in the first and third places, respectively,
fetching considerably large amounts if auctioned nowadays.
Beatitude, a prominent mimeographed magazine that, much like
Big Table, promoted the work of the Beats, published a Bukowski
poem in the July 1960 issue, alongside Jack Kerouac and Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, even though Bukowski was not a Beat in any sense of the
term. Bukowski’s work was probably printed in this “quintessential
‘Beat’ publication” (Clay 81) because the magazine was run by a com-
mittee where, as usual, some editors loathed him and others revered
him. Bukowski benefited from the ensuing editorial disagreements
since his poetry was published in most cases. At any rate, Beatitude’s
circulation was remarkable: “1,500 copies was the regular mimeo/
pressrun after the first few issues” (W. Margolis 51). Indeed, it was
a large-circulation figure for a mimeographed magazine, and cop-
ies were usually sold within a month. Undoubtedly, the substantial
number of copies as well as its efficient distribution contributed to
consolidate Bukowski’s burgeoning career.
At the other end of the spectrum, Scimitar and Song was a rather
traditional little magazine that published Bukowski in three issues in
1960, which shows again that he was indiscriminate in his selection
of the magazines he submitted to. His friend Jory Sherman explained
one of the reasons that persuaded them to send their work to the
magazine editor: “Both Hank and I had that weird woman on our list
because she paid $2.00 per poem. She published what Hank called
‘sewing circle verse,’ shallow rhyming poetry that made us both gag”
(“The Littles”). Given that most littles paid in contributor’s copies,
two dollars per poem could be a tempting sum for a prolific, rela-
tively unknown author as Bukowski. Furthermore, he submitted
what he considered to be his less crafted material: “She messed up
my poem . . . but it was a rotter anyway” (Screams 15). The poem that
Bukowski mentions, “She Lives in the Wind,” appeared in the March
1960 issue, and it is one of those early pieces that seems so unbu-
kowskian that it stands as an instance of the “sewing circle verse” he
despised so much. Paradoxically, the poem printed in the July 1960
issue, “I Saw a Tramp Last Night,” could be taken as a reaffirmation
of his genuine bukowskian persona.
Bukowski’s most important publication in 1960 was his first chap-
book, Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail —echoing D. H. Lawrence’s Birds,
Beasts and Flowers —published by E. V. Griffith under his Hearse
Press imprint after a painful 30-month long gestation. Griffith had
already printed Bukowski’s material in Hearse in 1958, and shortly
afterward he made up his mind to release a chapbook of his best work
to date, culling the poems he considered more accomplished from
several little magazines. Bukowski expressed his disagreement over
Griffith’s selection in his correspondence, claiming it was not repre-
sentative of his best poetry, but he was nonetheless pleased with the
idea of having a chapbook published. The exasperatingly slow process
that ensued infuriated an otherwise patient Bukowski, used to the
inefficiency of most little magazine editors, who, on many occasions,
accepted his poetry only to publish it several years later.
Griffith was so plagued by financial difficulties that Bukowski
decided to split the cost of the publication with him; growing increas-
ingly restless, Bukowski even suggested Griffith that he could keep
any profit from the sales. He conveyed his uneasiness in a letter to
Webb: “Still nothing on the Hearse chapbook . . . This thing has been
going on for over two years” (McCormick, Outsider, September 30,
1960). A week later, he confronted and threatened Griffith with mak-
ing public his editorial slovenliness in newspapers, Trace, and other
literary magazines: “I can not see it that sloppy and amateur editorial-
ism . . . cruelty and ineptness go unchallenged” (Screams 24). It is not
known whether Bukowski’s threats were effective or the chapbook
had already been mailed to him, but he received the first copies of
Flower, Fist on October 14, 1960, barely seven days after he had writ-
ten the last letter to Griffith.
He described on several occasions the joy he experienced when he
finally saw his first chapbook of poems, as he expressed in a late essay:
“[The chapbooks] spilled on the sidewalk, all the little books and I
knelt down among them, I was on my knees and I picked up a Flower
Fist and I kissed it” (“My Madness” 335). In a letter to Griffith where
he apologized for the menacing tone of his last missive, Bukowski’s
words were tinged with a similar elation: “I opened the package right
in the street, sunlight coming down, and there it was: Flower, Fist and
Bestial Wail, never a baby born in more pain . . . The first collected
poems of a man of 40, who began writing late” (Screams 25). Two
months afterward, Bukowski insisted on the fact that the painfully
long, infuriatingly slow production of his first publication had been
worth the wait. Bukowski soon forgot any and all resentments and
he enthusiastically discussed with Griffith the details of a new chap-
book of poetry, even suggesting him two titles, Trinkets for Whores,
Gamblers and Imbeciles, and Our Bread Is Blessed and Damned.
Although Griffith published several of his poems in Hearse and in
Poetry Now in the 1970s and 1980s, the projected second chapbook
never materialized.
Bukowski’s eloquent, ecstatic reaction when he first saw a copy of
Flower, Fist, kneeling down on a sidewalk and kissing the chapbook,
stands out in stark contrast to Ciotti’s assessment of the publication:
“[A] poetry aficionado in Eureka, Calif., published Bukowski’s first
book of poetry . . . It was 30 pages, mimeographed. Only 200 copies
were made, and few people saw it” (17). Ciotti’s view is somewhat
more realistic in that the limited circulation of the chapbook did not
bring about a noticeable increase in popularity, but Bukowski was
certainly entitled to believe that the publication was relevant, espe-
cially because E. V. Griffith claimed that “seventeen [chapbook] titles
were published under the Hearse Press imprint, the most significant
of which was Charles Bukowski’s Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail ” (142).
Copies of this publication are extremely scarce and whenever they
are made available to the general public they command high auction
prices.
While Flower, Fist was in production, there were other chapbooks
projected, but they were either aborted or discarded. However, that
several editors considered publishing those chapbooks attests to
Bukowski’s growing popularity. The first one was to be released by
Carl Larsen in late 1956 or early 1957 as a special Existaria issue.
In 1960, Bukowski explained to Jon Webb that Larsen had planned
to “bring out an edition with nothing but Charles Bukowski”
(McCormick, Outsider, September 30, 1960), but Bukowski had the
audacity to reject a group of poems that Larsen had submitted to
Harlequin. Larsen was obviously hurt by Bukowski’s editorial deci-
sion and he cancelled the scheduled chapbook. To Larsen’s credit, he
eventually published a Bukowski chapbook in 1961, Longshot Pomes
for Broke Players, and he printed several of his poems in Existaria in

1957, and in Brand “X” and rongWrong in the early 1960s.
Clarence Major, one of the first reviewers of Bukowski’s work, edited
Coercion Review, a little magazine published in the late 1950s and early
1960s. Bukowski probably found it listed in Trace’s directory and pro-
ceeded to submit several batches of poems to Major in 1958 and 1959.
As Major put it in 1961, “I was editing a little magazine myself in
Chicago . . . We planned in a big way to boost Bukowski . . . We wanted
to publish ‘all’ of Bukowski’s works” (“4 (Book) Reviews”). The cus-
tomary financial issues that most little editors faced during that period
hampered Major’s willingness to promote Bukowski’s poetry, and the
special Coercion Review issue exclusively devoted to Bukowski did not
crystallize.
Most little magazine editors kept submissions for several years
before publishing or rejecting them. Bukowski was used to such an
annoying practice and he seldom complained in that regard, although
he occasionally criticized those editors in his correspondence. Major
was aware of the discouraging effect that the return of previously
accepted material had on authors such as Bukowski: “The little maga-
zine world was notorious for keeping mss. for long periods of time,
usually not returning them, not answering queries. I apparently
became one of the usual” (Major, “C. R./Existaria”). Major did not
publish any of the many poems that Bukowski had submitted to the
Coercion Review, but to his credit he favorably reviewed Flower, Fist.
Incidentally, the two Bukowski poems that appeared in the first
San Francisco Review issue (1958) were later collected in Flower, Fist.
Two months after the release of his first chapbook, when Bukowski
was discussing with Griffith the details concerning the second chap-
book that did not materialize, he explained to Griffith that “the San
Francisco Review has taken a handful—he [Roy Miller] speaks of a
‘multi-page spread of what we feel is the best of Bukowski’” (Delaware,
December 1960). Miller, coeditor of the San Francisco Review, was as
overtly enthusiastic as Clarence Major about the prospect of publish-
ing a special issue of the little magazine featuring Bukowski’s work.
As in Major’s case, however, the initial eagerness dwindled in time.
Even if Miller published three Bukowski poems in the March 1961
issue of the San Francisco Review and he was still considering almost
a dozen poems for the aforementioned Bukowski section, the project
was finally aborted. Major argued that financial difficulties prevented
him from publishing the special Coercion Review with Bukowski’s
poetry. In the San Francisco Review’s case, given the rather negative
opinion of Bukowski’s work held by coeditor George Hitchcock, the
editorial disagreements over the value of his poems were the probable
cause of the cancelled spread.
Professor William Corrington became one of Bukowski’s staunch-
est supporters after discovering his work in a 1958 Quicksilver issue.
They corresponded extensively in the early 1960s, and Corrington sug-
gested Bukowski several outlets for his prolific output. In July 1961,
for instance, he mentioned a little magazine named Choice, coedited
in Madison, Wisconsin, by Marcus Smith, a friend of Corrington. Two
months later, Bukowski duly sent over 20 poems to Smith. Upon receiv-
ing them, Smith was so impressed that he decided to publish a joint
chapbook of Bukowski and Corrington poems: “Marcus says we’ve
got us a book. He’s got the poems picked, and only the title is slowing
him down,” Bukowski explained to Corrington (Centenary, October
10, 1961). Over the course of the following months, both authors
tried to come up with a title that represented their styles convinc-
ingly. They considered Double Shot, The Professor and the Horseplayer,
Jawbreakers for People Who Drive Tanks in Berlin, Plug This in Your
Bathtub When You Turn Out the Lights, and Snake Eyes, but they were
not entirely satisfied with any of these titles.
In November 1961, after several letters to Smith, Bukowski realized
that the joint chapbook had become a special section of their poems in
Choice because Smith had mentioned that he would subsidize the pub-
lication by placing advertisements in it. Nonetheless, in early December
1961 Bukowski sent Smith a further group of previously rejected
poems for the magazine, sensing that the chapbook had been defi-
nitely discarded. Indeed, by early January 1962 Bukowski suggested
to Corrington that he request Smith to return his poems so he could
submit them to other editors. A year later, Smith eventually admitted
his not being able to produce the chapbook and asked Bukowski if he
wanted his poems back. Smith did publish Corrington’s poetry in the
third and fourth issues of Choice, but Bukowski’s work was conspicu-
ous by its absence. That Bukowski occasionally lost his famed patience
seemed entirely justified given the large number of examples of edito-
rial slackness such as the failed chapbook with Corrington.
After Flower, Fist, and the chapbooks and special sections in little
magazines that did not materialize, Bukowski’s second chapbook,
Longshot Pomes for Broke Players, was published in October 1961
by Carl Larsen under the 7 Poets Press imprint. Although bibliog-
raphies and biographies claim that the chapbook came out in early
1962, Bukowski’s correspondence with Sheri Martinelli confirms the
October 1961 date. The Bukowski/Larsen editorial and epistolary
relationship dated back to late 1956, when Larsen considered a group

of Bukowski’s poems for their inclusion in Existaria, and Bukowski
rejected Larsen’s poetry when he coedited Harlequin. Bukowski sub-
sequently submitted large batches of poems to the other little maga-
zines edited by Larsen, Brand “X,” and rongWrong. By March 1961,
Larsen had so many Bukowski poems that he set his mind to bring
out a chapbook of his best poetry to date. Out of the 150 poems that
Larsen had, 26 made it to the chapbook, and all but 3 of them had
been previously published in little magazines, which evidences the
importance those alternative publications already had in Bukowski’s
burgeoning literary career.
Larsen stressed Bukowski’s prolific output and the significance
of his work when reminiscing about the inception of the chap-
book: “I received the whole manuscript, illustrations and cover art
included . . . Everyone I knew recognized his obvious talents and
energy. He was generous with his work, both written and drawn . . . I
believe it was the best book we ever put out” (Larsen, “rongWrong/
Bukowski”). Like E. V. Griffith, Larsen considered that Bukowski’s
chapbook stood out from the other publications he had been involved
in as an editor. As in the case of Flower, Fist, Bukowski was not satis-
fied with the poems Larsen had chosen, as he explained to Martinelli:
“Many of [the poems] I do not care for . . . but I cannot be bothered
because those poems are behind me” (Beerspit 260). Except for Cold
Dogs in the Courtyard (1965), Bukowski never selected the poems
that appeared in his chapbooks, hence his somewhat uncalled-for crit-
icism. Bukowski’s output was so massive that editors were faced with
the cumbersome task of choosing the proper poems; not surprisingly,
according to Bukowski, they erred more often than not.
Dissatisfaction with editorial choices notwithstanding, Bukowski
kept submitting his work to publishers in ridiculously large quanti-
ties. Bibliographers and biographers alike list Poems and Drawings, an
Epos Extra issue released by Evelyn Thorne and Will Tullos in March
1962, as his second chapbook. However, Poems and Drawings actu-
ally came out in late 1962, preceded by Longshot Pomes in October
1961 and Run with the Hunted in June 1962. The latter, dedicated
to his friend William Corrington, and published by R. R. Cuscaden
as the first Midwest Poetry Chapbook, was indeed Bukowski’s third
chapbook, as he remarked in a letter to Martinelli. Much like the pre-
vious chapbooks, the 20 poems that made up Run with the Hunted
had been already published in several little magazines.
Cuscaden, like Griffith and Larsen, also believed that Bukowski’s
chapbook had a special relevance in his editorial career, as he
maintained almost three years after its publication: “Frankly, I con-

sider the book one of the most significant things I’ve published”
(Davidson, February 6, 1965). Indeed, Cuscaden had been one of the
most ardent supporters of Bukowski’s work: he had printed Bukowski’s
poetry in his Midwest magazine as early as 1961, and he had penned
the first lengthy review of Bukowski’s work for the British magazine
Satis in 1962. He later published his poems in several other Midwest
issues in the early to mid-1960s, and a review written by Bukowski
in September 1961 about Diane di Prima’s This Kind of Bird Flies
Backwards (1958) was slated for Midwest #5 and then Midwest #8,
but Cuscaden finally discarded it because he found it too long for that
little magazine.
Bukowski’s fourth chapbook, Poems and Drawings, was released
in late 1962, not in March 1962. Bukowski expressed so in a let-
ter to Corrington, where he also stressed his discontent with most
editors’ incompetence as opposed to Thorne’s admirable efficiency:
“[Poems and Drawings will come out] sometime before next Jan
[1963] . . . I do not care for most of the stuff she publishes but her
method of operation is refreshing and is a good lesson to those slow,
haphazard, pretentious, slovenly, siffed-up jackoffs who piddle dwadle
yawn sleep upon our own dwindling time” (Centenary, June 1962).
Thorne corroborated the date in an October 1962 letter reproduced
in the third issue of The Outsider, where many of the editors who
had published Bukowski congratulated him on having received the
magazine’s “Outsider of the Year” award: “Epos is honoring him too
with an all-Bukowski issue this fall (1962). As this is the only one-
poet issue we have done in all our 14 years you will understand we
thoroughly agree with your choice” (Thorne 59). Epos editors were
obviously delighted to champion Bukowski as the emerging outsider
of the American underground.
While Bukowski praised Thorne’s editorial skills, he considered
Poems and Drawings to be the least accomplished of all his chapbooks
to date. In all probability, the subject matter of most poems was the
main cause of his disapproving assessment: “The Epos thing is mostly
poems on the Art and Writing thing, which I am now pretty tired of
doing,” he confided to Corrington (Centenary, October 8, 1962).
However, Bukowski was partly responsible for his own dissatisfaction
since he deliberately submitted his most classical work to Epos only.
The fact that the 14 poems published in Poems and Drawings had not
previously appeared in the littles evidences this pattern. Whereas the
other chapbooks could be taken as a culmination of the work printed
in alternative publications, Poems and Drawings stands on its own as

a rara avis.
As the appendix shows, the number of little magazines with Bukowski’s

work in 1961 experienced a relatively noticeable increase compared
to 1960. Many of the littles that published him in 1961 had already
done so in the previous years, as in the case of Epos, Hearse, or Targets,
among others. Descant was a college journal that published a group of
poems that Bukowski did not particularly like; one of them, “Export,”
was so unbukowskian that a longtime collector thought it had been
misattributed to Bukowski. Experiment published “Program on the
Sand” after a five-year delay, putting Bukowski’s patience to the test.
Renaissance, by John Bryan, was a key little magazine in a series
of periodicals published by Bryan, which led to the minor success
achieved via Open City. The Anagogic & Paideumic Review, edited by
Sheri Martinelli, whose voluminous correspondence with Bukowski
was published in Beerspit Night and Cursing in 2001, was a mimeo-
graphed magazine that not only featured his poems, but also printed
his drawings, reviews of his work, and even his astrological chart.
Canto, edited by Ken Margolis, published one of the very few short
stories written by Bukowski in the early 1960s, “The Night I Nodded
to George Raft in Vegas.” Margolis recalled Bukowski’s submission in
flattering terms: “[I received] two poems from Bukowski who I had
never heard of . . . but I could tell these were great poems in a great
voice . . . [His poems are] probably the only thing in the magazine that
holds up as being worthwhile” (K. Margolis). “The Night I Nodded
to George Raft in Vegas” was a prose poetry exercise split in two sec-
tions, and Margolis argued that it actually was two narrative poems.
Most importantly, Margolis stressed the salient nature of Bukowski’s
work, especially when compared to the other authors published in the
same periodical.
Loujon Press: “Miracles in

Flesh” (1961–1965)
Although inaccurately called “king of the littles” by the end of the 1950s
(A. Malone 51), the publication of the first four chapbooks as well as
the increasing number of periodical appearances in the early 1960s did
contribute to the “minor legend that rapidly [grew] up around him”
(Larsen 19). Despite very few condemnatory attacks in print, such as
frederic franklyn’s in Grande Ronde Review (1964), where he claimed
that Bukowski’s “heroic posturing” was receiving, much to the critic’s

chagrin, “an undue amount of attention,” or Robert Creeley’s and
Dabney Stuart’s in Poetry (1963; 1964), reviews and interviews gave
his career an important boost during this period, especially those
published in newspapers with a substantial audience. Not surprisingly,
then, Bukowski’s early chapbooks were soon fanatically sought after
as collectibles, prompting John Martin to request copies in almost
plaintive terms: “I have looked long and in vain for your early books:
‘Flower, Fist, Long Shot Pomes, Run with the Hunted . . . Do you have
any copies of them?’” (Davidson, October 19, 1965).
The eagerness displayed by Griffith, Larsen, Major, Miller, Thorne
and Tullos, Smith, and other editors in publishing Bukowski’s work
in special issues or chapbooks was undeniably praiseworthy. In retro-
spect, however, all those publications, including the prestigious Story
and Portfolio magazines in the 1940s, the controversial Harlequin
and Beloit Poetry Journal issues in the mid to late 1950s, or the myr-
iad littles that unremittingly promoted his poetry were but paving
the way for the arrival of Jon and Louise Webb, the self-sacrificing
editors who championed Bukowski’s oeuvre unflaggingly via their
Loujon Press imprint. The Webbs not only published several first-rate
Bukowski poems in all The Outsider issues (1961–1969), but they
also devoted special sections of their magazine to his work, placed
a Humphrey Bogart-ish photograph of his face on the front cover
of the third issue, gave him the “Outsider of the Year” award, and,
most importantly, released the two major publications of the period,
It Catches My Heart in Its Hands (1963) and Crucifix in a Deathhand
(1965), the first milestone books of his literary career. Bukowski
overtly expressed his gratitude on several occasions, frequently com-
paring Jon Webb to Whit Burnett and H. L. Mencken, the only other
editors he always referred to in laudatory terms: “[Jon] was one of the
2 or 3 great editors of the 20th century. Along with Whit Burnett
of Story and Mencken of the old Mercury,” he declared in the early
1970s (“The Outsider” 10).
Jory Sherman, who had been appointed West Coast advisor for
The Outsider, mentioned to Bukowski that the newly born magazine
was soliciting material for its inaugural issue. As Sherman recalled,
“[F]irst on my list of contributors was Bukowski” (Friendship 19).
Any new magazine was an outlet for Bukowski’s incessant output,
and he gladly sent a group of poems to Sherman, who claimed that
“I selected the poems for The Outsider. Jon approved them . . . I
know they were good poems and blew John and Lou away” (“Buk”).
Indeed, the Webbs were so impressed by Bukowski’s material that
a voluminous correspondence ensued. In early 1961, Webb sent

Bukowski the infamous “A Charles Bukowski Album” offprint—leg-
end has it that only ten copies were produced—which was meant to
be the main section of The Outsider #1 (fall 1961). The eleven poems
that made up the Album were some of the most accomplished pieces
by Bukowski to date, including “Old Man, Dead in a Room,” a clas-
sic for many critics, and repeatedly praised by professor Corrington
in his essays about Bukowski’s work.
Unlike most little magazine editors in the early to mid-1960s,
who published any Bukowski poem, even if they were consider-
ably below average, Webb was extremely demanding and he firmly
and unapologetically rejected those mediocre poems that Bukowski
used to submit to most editors. Webb’s quality standards were not
restricted to content only; design was essential as well, and the fact
that it took the Webbs over 4,500 hours of work to complete the
3,100 copies produced for the first issue of The Outsider fully attests
to their unshakeable belief in that quality did matter. As Miles put it,
“Webb called it the LouJon [sic] Press, named after himself and his
wife Louise. Their magazine was designed to be noticed: a lavish pro-
duction, hand-printed with tissue interleaves on different coloured
papers and illustrated with photographs and drawings” (C. Bukowski
123). While The Outsider #1 was printed using a 40-year-old 8-by-
12 Chandler & Price foot-pedal letterpress, totaling nearly one mil-
lion hand-pulls over a two-year period, the arduous, painstakingly
slow process involved in producing such a quality magazine, along
with their dreadful, impoverished living conditions, eventually took a
heavy toll on their health and, to facilitate the printing process, they
resorted to a motorized Chandler & Price for the second and third
issues, and a rebuilt high-speed Heidelberg press for the final one.
The Webbs’s strict quality standards both for content and for-
mat, together with the large circulation of the magazine, brought
about a much-longed-for minor success to Bukowski. According to
Cherkovski, “[T]his portfolio of poems [in The Outsider #1] brought
Bukowski’s work to the attention of . . . the literary critics in New York
and San Francisco” (Hank 127). Furthermore, many Beat authors
discovered Bukowski’s poetry in the first issue of The Outsider, where
he appeared alongside postwar American heavyweights such as Allen
Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Leroi Jones, Henry Miller, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, and Michael McClure. Undoubtedly, Bukowski was in
exceptionally good company.
The Outsider reached a wider readership than most little maga-
zines because Webb had carefully devised a large editorial network
consisting of several advisors and consultants. The advisors, such as

Marvin Bell, Margaret Randall, Jory Sherman in the United States,
Melville Hardiment in England, and Sinclair Beiles in France, among
others, were editors and authors who knew the best channels to dis-
tribute and promote the magazine, and who also contacted most of
the well-established contributors who appeared in all the issues. Walter
Lowenfels, whose work was featured in the first two issues, and who
published an essay by Jon Webb in the “Little Magazines in America”
symposium that he assembled for Mainstream in 1962–1963, acted
as consultant. Much like the magazine advisors, Lowenfels suggested
to Webb some of the authors who were eventually published in The
Outsider. To round his publicity campaign off, Webb placed several
advertisements in many little magazines across the country as well as
in prominent newspapers such as the Village Voice.
Webb’s discerning literary criteria also contributed to making
The Outsider popular in the alternative publishing scene. He firmly
believed that only first-rate literature, regardless of the authors’
prestige or the literary school they belonged to, should grace The
Outsider pages; hence his inflexibility and stubbornness when reject-
ing the unsatisfactory, experimental, and academic material that some
renowned writers submitted to the magazine. As Bukowski put it
in a Wormwood Review issue published in the early 1970s as a trib-
ute to Jon Webb shortly after his death, “Jon told me later that the
known writers had tried to place rejected and stale work upon him
and that he had to keep insisting to get a vigorous and fresh work”
(“The Outsider” 3). As a consequence of Webb’s iron-handed edito-
rial guidelines, the magazine displayed the best new literature from
authors with a radically different view of literature, such as Creeley
and Bukowski.
Bukowski and Webb corresponded extensively while the first issue
was being assembled, and Webb wanted to know Bukowski’s opin-
ion regarding his all-schools-accepted policy. Bukowski’s reply was
unequivocal: “I think it entirely possible to print Dorn and Thompson,
Hedley and Creeley in the same edition. Or Olson and Jory Sherman.
We have enough magazines of limited slants and schools now”
(McCormick, Outsider, December 2, 1960). However, Jack Kerouac
and Denise Levertov did object to Webb printing authors who
belonged to completely different literary movements while Marvin
Bell, who claimed that the first The Outsider issue reminded him of
“the magazines of the 20’s . . . with their blasting, varied and hodge-
podge formats” (Weddle 65–66), applauded Webb’s decision. In any
case, Webb’s editorial policies and publicity campaigns turned out to
be extremely successful; not only did the magazine sell well and was
unanimously praised by critics and readers, but by the time the sec-
ond issue came out in 1962, it had already become a collectible.
The second issue of The Outsider appeared in the summer of 1962
and, like the first one, Webb proved again that he did not mind mixing
schools and styles: William Burroughs, Joel Oppenheimer, Howard
Nemerov, Gregory Corso, Edward Field, Jean Genet, Walter Lowenfels,
Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, and Bukowski, among
many other contributors, made up a most heterogeneous issue with
a closing article titled “Jazz Documentary.” Nevertheless, it was the
third issue (spring 1963) that definitely enhanced Bukowski’s reputa-
tion. Besides his customary poems, a photograph of Bukowski bear-
ing a striking resemblance to Bogart graced the front cover. As Miles
somewhat exaggeratedly remarked, “[I]n the little magazine world this
was like being on the cover of Time or Rolling Stone” (C. Bukowski
133). Coincidentally enough, Rolling Stone would run a lengthy fea-
ture on Bukowski in 1976 that made him extremely popular outside
the literary scene.
Webb also included two of the best critical articles written to
date about Bukowski’s work, “Charles Bukowski: Poet in a Ruined
Landscape,” by R. R. Cuscaden, previously published in Satis (1962),
where Bukowski was compared to French poète maudit Charles
Baudelaire, and a new piece by Corrington simply titled “Charles
Bukowski: Three Poems,” where he discussed at length the literary
value of “Old Man, Dead in a Room,” “The Tragedy of the Leaves,”
and “The Priest and the Matador.” By selecting those three poems,
Corrington showed his keen eye for showcasing Bukowski’s most rep-
resentative work, as they are among the most anthologized poems
of his entire career. Several letters by Bukowski were reproduced as
well, probably to illustrate how lively and nonbusinesslike his cor-
respondence was. However, the most significant section of the issue
was titled “Editors Congratulate,” which displayed encouraging
comments from 20 editors who had published Bukowski’s work in
the littles, congratulating him on having received “The Outsider of
the Year” award. Although the award did not bring international
fame, it did point to Bukowski’s ever-growing reputation in the small
press scene. Furthermore, it was one of the very few literary prizes
Bukowski was ever awarded. He always referred to it proudly, and he
refused to sell it. It is still hanging on a wall next to the kitchen in his
San Pedro home.
After a six-year lapse, The Outsider #4/5 (spring 1969) came out
in Tucson. A lengthy, lavishly produced issue, it was widely praised
by most critics. The Los Angeles Free Press, for instance, claimed that
Loujon Press was “the Rolls Royce of publishers” (qtd. in Weddle 145).
While the Webbs published four poems by Bukowski in that issue, the
central section of the magazine was a 46-page homage to Kenneth
Patchen with contributions by Jack Conroy, Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth
Rexroth, Henry Miller, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, or James Boyer May.
Bukowski was delighted to be in this issue because appearing in The
Outsider was always an outstanding event, but the high standards set
by the third issue seemed unsurpassable.
Bukowski disliked most publishers and he bluntly criticized them
for their inefficiency and apparently unskillful editorial decisions.
His continuous gratitude and support for the Webbs is, then, doubly
remarkable. In early 1963, he confided to Corrington that “after bat-
tling and hating editors all my life, it has to come to this: an almost
awe of the workmanship, manner and miracle of these 2 people”
(Centenary, March 19, 1963). Critics and biographers acknowledged
the impact the Webbs had on Bukowski’s literary career. Sounes
claimed that the Loujon Press was “a cut above Bukowski’s previ-
ous publishers and an important stepping-stone in his career” (B. in
Pictures 10), stressing that they were the most significant small press
editors of the period. Hugh Fox even went on to remark that Loujon
Press was Bukowski’s most important literary association in his life.
While in retrospect Fox’s statement might seem somewhat extreme,
it would not have been preposterous to make such a claim in the late
1960s. At any rate, The Outsider was an instrumental magazine, or
“book periodical” as the Webbs termed it, in spreading Bukowski’s
work in literary cliques that had not been especially receptive until
then. By earning him a wider readership than most little magazines,
the Webbs and The Outsider partially satisfied his insatiable hunger
for exposure and acceptance.
Nevertheless, significant as it was, and probably unrivaled as a
magazine in terms of quality, The Outsider was but a springboard to
the subsequent release of the two major books by Bukowski in the
early to mid-1960s, It Catches My Heart in Its Hands and Crucifix in
a Deathhand, which would become a turning point in his career and
are often cited as his first genuine literary breakthrough. According
to Bukowski, after the success of The Outsider, Webb intimated that
Loujon could release a volume of collected poems with his best work
to date. Bukowski was taken aback: “Jon said, how about a book?
Here he was in contact with the greatest writers of our time and he
wanted to do a book by an unknown” (“The Outsider” 7). Bukowski’s
elated astonishment was not completely unfounded; Webb was indeed
in touch with Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti,

Kenneth Patchen, and other well-known authors, and he brought out
two beautifully produced books by Miller, Order and Chaos Chez
Hans Reichel (1966) and Insomnia or the Devil at Large (1970).
However, in the early 1960s those authors were submitting their
second-rate work to The Outsider, probably because it was an emerg-
ing little magazine and they mistakenly assumed that, as many a little,
it would disappear after the first issue, especially in the light of the
financial and editorial hardships involved in printing and publishing
the magazine that the Webbs repeatedly reported in their correspon-
dence and in the advertisements used to promote The Outsider. To
Bukowski, these were minor considerations that did not deter him
from submitting his material to the magazine in large quantities. In
any event, Webb’s proposal to put out a book of collected poems
caught Bukowski genuinely by surprise, and he devoted all his efforts
to help Webb to carefully select his most accomplished poems.
As early as September 1962, Bukowski suggested several titles
to Webb, including The Flower That Went Broke Hunting Others ;
For Jocks, Chambermaids, Thieves and Basoon Players ; Minstrels
Would Go Crazy Singing This ; or The Virgins Caught Me Bathing
with a Bear, among many others. The title they finally settled on, It
Catches My Heart in Its Hands, taken from Robinson Jeffers’s poem
“Hellenistics,” was first mentioned on December 29, 1962. Bukowski
suspected that the book would be a financially unrewarding labor of
love for the Webbs, much like the first The Outsider issues, and he
decided not to accept any royalties from the sales. Furthermore, given
the poverty-stricken living conditions of the Webbs, he deemed it
reasonable to help them to defray the expenses incurred in producing
the book and he sent them “50 bucks . . . I said earlier that we could
call this a loan” (ibid., December 29, 1962). Interestingly, Bukowski
had also financially contributed to have his first chapbook published
by E. V. Griffith in 1960.
The 777 laboriously hand-printed copies of It Catches were finally
released in October 1963. The book was enthusiastically received
by many critics, understandably so in Corrington’s case since he
had painstakingly picked out most of the poems with Webb. In the
introduction to the collection, Corrington compared Bukowski to
Wordsworth, W. C. Williams, and Rimbaud, and he claimed that
Bukowski’s poetry was “the spoken voice nailed to paper” (“mid-
flight” 5), which is probably one of the most oft-quoted citations
about Bukowski’s work. It Catches was even reviewed in the New York
Times Book Review by such an authority as Kenneth Rexroth: “Charles
Bukowski suffers from too good a press—a small but loudly enthu-
siastic claque . . . However, if you put aside his volunteer public-rela-
tions experts, he turns out to be a substantial writer” (5). Although
Rexroth enjoyed Bukowski’s work so much that he even suggested to
James Laughlin that he publish Bukowski in New Directions, Rexroth
would condemn Bukowski in the early 1970s after he wrote a seem-
ingly vicious “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” column about Kenneth
Patchen for Nola Express.
Barely two years later, a critic asserted in Graffiti, an obscure little
magazine, that “[It Catches] was one of the most interesting publish-
ing events, I am convinced, of the last thirty years” (Taylor, “The
Image”). Indeed, the relevance of the book in Bukowski’s canon
and reputation remains unparalleled. Bukowski expressed his own
admiration in a November 1963 letter to the Webbs, stressing their
craftsmanship as editors: “I have never seen such a book put together
in such a way, inventive creativeness and love” (Screams 93–94). As
a matter of fact, the book was so lavishly produced that Bukowski
feared that readers might consider design more relevant than content.
Collectors did value it, and copies of It Catches fetched as much as
50 dollars by 1967, as opposed to the initial price of 5 dollars in 1963.
As in most cases, Bukowski’s eager reaction after book publication
gave way to a more thoughtful assessment over time: “It is not a bad
book, but it is not immortal except for one or two poems,” he main-
tained in the early 1970s (“The Outsider” 6).
After the critically acclaimed release of It Catches, the Webbs
embarked on yet another editorial odyssey plagued with financial and
personal hardships, which resulted in the publication of Bukowski’s
Crucifix in a Deathhand in April 1965 after nine months of print-
ing, in contrast to the four months it had taken them to complete It
Catches in 1963. Crucifix, for which Bukowski considered titles such
as For Regions Lower than Crying or Screams from a Wax Museum
World, was the culmination of another superbly, even extravagantly,
produced labor of love. As the colophon stated, the 3,100 copies of
the book had been “handfed in single page impressions, on Linweave
Spectra paper in shades of ivory, white, peacock, gobelin, bayberry,
bittersweet & saffron, on an 8 by 12 C. & P. letterpress in New
Orleans, La” (qtd. in Krumhansl 29). Like the previous volume, it
was an exhausting unprofitable venture where the Webbs netted as
little as four cents an hour.
Unlike It Catches, Crucifix featured new material, which Bukowski
had begun to submit to the Webbs in late 1963, but most of the
poems were written “during one very hot, lyrical month in New
Orleans in 1965” (Bukowski, “Author’s”). The book, with etchings

by Noel Rockmore, was glowingly reviewed by critics, especially in
reference to design, as Bukowski had rightly surmised since its incep-
tion. Regarding content, comparisons with It Catches were inevita-
ble, and the general consensus was that it had not met expectations.
Bukowski, who did not like the title selected by Webb because it was
“too dramatic” (Means 12), admitted as much in the early 1970s:
“[It] was written right into the face of a waiting press and does not
represent Bukowski’s best work” (“The Outsider” 6).
Self-criticism notwithstanding, Bukowski always referred to the
Webbs in the most flattering terms. He was perfectly aware of the
efforts involved in their literary productions and, in a letter to Al Purdy,
he claimed that “the Webbs are miracles in flesh. The[y] work in this
dive full of roaches and rats and paper and press and no room . . . and
they starve and print pages of poetry and a magazine” (The B./Purdy
Letters 55). The Loujon books became the first landmarks in Bukowski’s
literary career, as acknowledged by most critics. Indeed, both collec-
tions “enhanced his reputation and many young poets began to look
him as a leader” (Sounes, Locked 73). By 1965, the mimeograph revolu-
tion was about to reach its peak of frantic activity, and authors/editors
such as Douglas Blazek, Steve Richmond, John Bennett, D. R. Wagner,
among many others, fanatically published Bukowski’s work in their
littles or mimeos, as if he were the main literary figure of the revolu-
tion of the 1960s. Their encouragement unquestionably contributed to
strengthen his already mythical status in the American underground.
Nevertheless, most, if not all, of those young authors had discovered
Bukowski’s poetry in the books and magazine printed by a towering
small press ran by two humble, indefatigable editors named Jon and
Lou Webb.
“The Best Poet in America”

The publications produced by the Webbs were not the only factor that
heightened Bukowski’s popularity. Jon Webb was a seasoned author/
editor, and his carefully devised advertising campaigns were instru-
mental in drawing the attention of readers, collectors, and libraries
alike. After the release of It Catches in October 1963, the Webbs
received over 400 congratulatory letters from well-known authors
and publishers. In an attempt to sell the remaining copies of the
book, Webb designed a promotional flyer where he reproduced sev-
eral excerpts from those letters and he distributed it via the custom-
ary publishing channels. Henry Miller was quoted as saying that the
book was “a treat to the eyes, and a beautiful gift . . . Give my warmest
to the good Bukowski.” Jean Genet’s comment was more succinct:
“Beau livre, belle poesie!” Webb crafted similar promotional flyers
with further comments from famous writers.
Those excerpts were soon printed in the media, albeit substantially
rephrased. For instance, as early as May 1964, an unnamed editor,
possibly Jay Robert Nash or Ron Offen, claimed in Chicago’s Literary
Times that “Charles Bukowski, author of the exquisitely-printed and
famed It Catches My Heart in Its Hands . . . has been hailed as one
of the best in the field by Henry Miller, Genet, Offen, Patchen and
others” (“Editor’s Note”). In all probability, the Literary Times edi-
tor had read Webb’s promotional flyer since the authors mentioned
in both the newspaper and the flyer were the same. While the writers
quoted in the flyer did not literally assert that Bukowski was “one of
the best in the field,” that was indeed the notion that Webb wanted
to convey to enhance his reputation.
After being used in the promotional flyer for Letters to a Young
Poet, a volume with the Bukowski correspondence to Steve Richmond
to be released in 1966, which was eventually cancelled, journalists
nurtured this misconception. In a November 1970 article by Ben
Pleasants published in the Los Angeles Times, the snowball effect
reached its climax: “Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Genet have called him
the best poet writing in America . . . Henry Miller has praised him to
the skies” (“3 Volumes” 31). Bukowski was mischievously delighted
to learn that a mainstream newspaper had misinformed its large read-
ership to his own benefit, and he admitted as much to Pleasants in the
late 1970s: “I just made it up. I think the Webbs said it first in one
of their blurbs for It Catches My Heart in Its Hands, and now it’s in
print for a million readers to see” (Pleasants, Visceral 190). Pleasants
insisted that it had been Bukowski who had come up with the Genet/
Sartre endorsement: “He told me Sartre and Genet were great fans of
his. I put that in an LA Times piece, it got all over the world and he
told me he was only kidding” (“Re: When Bukowski”). In his biog-
raphy, Sounes expressed a similar view, stating it was another myth
created by Bukowski. Sounes’s and Pleasants’s hypotheses notwith-
standing, they did not seem to take into account Bukowski’s claim
that the apparently apocryphal Genet/Sartre quotation had been first
printed by Webb.
Barely a few months later, in early 1971, Bukowski and Lawrence
Ferlinghetti were discussing the contents of a book to be titled
Bukowskiana, a volume of his most accomplished short stories and
poetry to date, “the wildest shit since Bocaccio and Swift!,” as
Bukowski proudly declared (Bancroft, April 22, 1971). The project

was never released as such since Martin did not allow the poems to
be printed by City Lights, although the stories were published the
following year in Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General
Tales of Ordinary Madness. Ferlinghetti suggested to Bukowski that
he use the Genet/Sartre quote on the back cover of Bukowskiana, but
Bukowski adamantly refused to do so: “I’m tired of the [quotation]
about Sartre and Genet calling me the best poet in America. I don’t
know how that one ever got started. I doubt the truth of it. I think it
was something Jon Webb blew up out of proportion and others picked
it up. I don’t know” (Bancroft, December 30, 1971). Bukowski was
obviously discontent with the overuse of the quotation, stressing it
had been devised as part of Webb’s marketing strategies.
It is not known whether Webb later twisted the excerpts quoted
in the It Catches promotional flyer to make them more appealing,
or perhaps they were altered—with Webb’s tacit consent—by the
media. Be that as it may, Bukowski reminisced about this episode in
the late 1980s, unequivocally disapproving of Webb’s misuse of those
comments:
So I asked [Webb] about this. And he said, “Somebody read Genet

your poem, ‘Old Man Dead in a Room’ and Genet said it was a great
poem.”
“But that’s not the same as the other. He didn’t say I was the best
poet in America. I don’t want you to use this blurb.”
We were drinking and he just stared at me.
Then I asked him about Sartre and he claimed he had actually said
I was the best poet in America in an article. I never saw the article. But
my present editor at Black Sparrow [John Martin] claims it is true. I
don’t know . . . I think it’s all horseshit and wish those blurbs had never
been used. I don’t need them and I don’t want them. (Reach 100)
While in 1970 Bukowski had playfully persuaded Pleasants to pub-

lish the fake Genet/Sartre quotation in the Los Angeles Times, he
would later regret it, deploring its repeated exposure in newspapers
and magazines.
Indeed, as Sounes remarked, “this plaudit was widely reported in
the underground press, becoming one of the most famous remarks
about Bukowski” (Locked 142). After the mention in the Los Angeles
Times article, the Genet/Sartre quote was printed in the biographical
note for Bukowski’s Post Office (1971), the first work of fiction pub-
lished by Black Sparrow Press. Incidentally, Martin maintained that
he had first read that endorsement in an article about the “infamous”
Democratic Convention published in a mainstream magazine, prob-

ably Esquire, in the late 1960s, but efforts to find such a quote in
Esquire have been unsuccessful to date. While it is true that the
August 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention was duly covered by
Terry Southern, William Burroughs, and Jean Genet for Esquire in
the November 1968 issue, the Genet/Sartre staunch support was
conspicuous by its absence. Most likely, Martin read the quote in the
Los Angeles Times in November 1970 and, barely three months later,
he cashed in on it by reprinting it in Post Office.
Two years later, the same quotation was used in the promotional
poster for Bukowski (1973), the first full-length documentary about
his life. Music journalist Lester Bangs (59) asserted that “Genet and
Sartre think he’s the best poet in America” in Creem magazine in
1974. It was later famously reproduced in a 1976 Rolling Stone issue
featuring a long interview with Bukowski. According to critics, the
Rolling Stone appearance attested to Bukowski’s growing cult in
the United States, and it also reinforced his indisputable popular-
ity. Almost a decade later, actor Sean Penn depicted Bukowski as a
“notorious boozer, brawler, and womanizer, both Genet and Sartre
called him ‘the best poet in America’” in Andy Warhol’s Interview
magazine (94). After Bukowski’s death in March 1994, obituaries
in British papers such as the Independent or the Guardian perpetu-
ated the rumor, although it was changed to “the greatest poet in
America” (Reed A19; Hoare 1). The apparently fake quotation was
reported not only in the underground press, but also in large circu-
lation mainstream magazines, books, newspapers, and promotional
flyers. Despite Bukowski’s disapproval of the exposure received by
the quote, it definitely contributed to consolidating his reputation
as a major author in the American underground. Webb’s advertising
campaigns turned out to be considerably more efficient than what
could have been possibly predicted.
The Genet/Sartre quotation was not the only one used to pro-
mote Bukowski’s books. Carl Weissner, a young editor/author who
was to translate most of his books into German from 1970 onward,
authored a fictitious Henry Miller blurb to boost sales of the German
version of Notes of a Dirty Old Man. Miller had expressed his admi-
ration for Bukowski’s work as early as 1963; shortly after reading It
Catches, he wrote to Webb that “I do sincerely like Bukowski’s poems.
And I don’t see why he is not published by a big publisher” (Loujon,
December 18, 1963). Likewise, after the release of Crucifix in April
1965, the Webbs informed Bukowski of Miller’s complimentary
appraisal of the book, to which he replied in July 1965: “If Henry
Miller liked Crucifix that’s good enough for me, that’s the best critic
there is—a man who has lived that hard that long just can’t learn to
lie and also has no need to” (Screams 191). Bukowski and Miller cor-
responded briefly in August 1965, and Miller insisted on the quality
of the Webbs’s production: “The book is worth twice what the pub-
lishers are asking for it” (“Dear Friend”).
In all likelihood, Weissner was aware of the Miller/Bukowski epis-
tolary exchange and he had probably read Miller’s laudatory com-
ments in the promotional flyers designed by Webb; hence, he decided
to impersonate Miller and compose a fake blurb, which read: “Each
line in Bukowski is infected by the terror of the American night-
mare. He articulates the fears & agonies of the vast minority in the
no-man’s-land between inhuman brutalisation and helpless despair”
(qtd. in Living 93). While in the late 1980s Bukowski blatantly disap-
proved of the Genet/Sartre quotation, in 1970 he gave Weissner his
consent to place the apocryphal Miller blurb on the back cover of
Notes of a Dirty Old Man even if the idea did not enthuse him: “I’m
not too happy with the fake H.M. quote, and I would not tell Martin
about it or he’d flip—maybe. But if you think it will make a differ-
ence in selling 2,000 or 5,000, go ahead. It’s best that we survive. By
the way, I like the blurb itself. Quite accurate” (Living 93). Given the
apparent confusion regarding the origin of the Genet/Sartre quota-
tion, and that Webb had also quoted Miller in his promotional flyers,
it is somewhat understandable that some critics have mixed up both
references: “The much-quoted endorsement of Bukowski by Jean-Paul
Sartre and Jean Genet (‘the best poet in America’) was made up by
Weissner for a German edition blurb” (J. Smith, Art 212). However,
Weissner authored and published, with Bukowski’s consent, the fake
Miller blurb.
Littles and Mimeos on the Rise (1962–1966)

Wormwood Review, a Lifelong Commitment
Marvin Malone discovered Bukowski’s work in either the Naked Ear
(1957) or in Hearse (1958), depending on his own recollections.
In the early 1960s, Carl Larsen furnished Malone with Bukowski’s
address, and they began to correspond by the time the first issue of
The Outsider (fall 1961) came out. Both The Outsider and Malone’s
Wormwood Review were pivotal little magazines in Bukowski’s early
career, and, alongside Blazek’s Olé, they were the very few alternative
publications that Bukowski consistently praised in print. Similarly to
Olé, and in a lesser degree to The Outsider, the Wormwood Review was,
as Malone put it, “a one-man operation, with the editor functioning
in all capacities—reading submissions, editing, typing camera-ready
copy, designing/preparing cover art, maintaining correspondence
and subscription lists, addressing mailing envelopes, plus functioning
as a clerk, accountant and fall guy” (“The Why” 223). Malone was
an opinionated editor who laid down a set of guidelines to publish
Wormwood Review, which he scrupulously met. Apart from not pub-
lishing friends and other editors, one of the main aims was to attain
an unmistakable identity that allowed the little magazine to become
unique.
Malone accomplished such a goal, and Bukowski stressed his
integrity and persistence in an essay published in the early 1970s:
“Quietly and without weeping or ranting or bitching or quitting or
pausing . . . Malone has simply gone on and on and compiled an exact
and lively talent, issue after issue” (“Upon” 17). Bukowski not only
admired Malone’s perseverance and his consistent editorial policies,
but also regarded highly Malone’s utter lack of interest in publish-
ing well-known authors: “[Bukowski] said most editors were idiots;
they published names, not poems. They looked for the names before
they read the poems. He told me the two editors who did not fit into
that mold were Jon Webb and Marvin Malone” (Pleasants, Visceral
148). Indeed, Webb was one of the very few editors Bukowski repeat-
edly and overtly praised, comparing him to Burnett and Mencken.
Bukowski believed that Malone was in the same editorial league, and
he was delighted to find a publisher who did reply to his inquiries and
submissions in a timely fashion, unlike many other negligent little
magazine editors.
As in the Webbs’s or Blazek’s case, the gratitude was mutual. One
of the reasons that might explain why Bukowski continued to support
those editors was that they published his work in most, if not all, issues
of their magazines. Malone was no exception, and he championed
Bukowski’s poetry from 1962, when he appeared for the first time in
the Wormwood Review, to the very last issue he edited in the 1990s,
when, after Bukowski’s death in 1994, he posthumously printed his
material. As Dalton noted, “Malone stuck his neck out when plenty
of others were letting Bukowski suffer the lengthy aftermath of their
rejection slips” (46). While this assertion is somewhat inaccurate since
Bukowski had been published in a considerable number of little mag-
azines by 1962, it is fundamentally true that Malone contributed to
Bukowski’s growing popularity in the alternative literary scene.
Dalton summed up Bukowski’s appearances in the Wormwood

Review thus: “[T]here were 137 issues total (including ‘double’ issues).
The contributor who appeared in the most issues . . . was Charles
Bukowski (97 issues, with 4 chapbooks and 5 special center sections)”
(47). According to my own calculations, Malone published Bukowski
in 102 issues, totaling 397 poems, one letter-essay, and a long prose
poem that Bukowski considered a short story. The first issue featur-
ing Bukowski came out in 1962 and the last one in 1999, edited by
Malone’s daughter, Christa Malone. In the 1960s, for instance, 40 of
his poems were printed in 18 Wormwood Review issues, and in the
1980s Malone published him in 28 issues, featuring 140 poems. The
Wormwood Review issue #122–123, a Bukowski-only chapbook titled
People Poems (1991), contained 43 poems; issue #71, a previous chap-
book titled Legs, Hips and Behind (1978), printed 38 poems. These
figures reveal that Bukowski was indeed the most published author in
the Wormwood Review, which fully attests to Malone’s unshakeable
faith in his work. It was one of the few mutually rewarding literary—
and epistolary—relationships Bukowski enjoyed in the publishing
scene.
Undoubtedly, the Wormwood Review was the most significant lit-
tle magazine that published Bukowski’s work in 1962, but there were
other relevant periodical appearances that year. For instance, Mica
#7, edited by Helmut Bonheim and Raymond Federman, printed a
lengthy prose poem titled “ww2.” The poem itself raises the question
of the boundaries between poetry and prose. Bukowski considers it
fiction in the opening lines of the poem, but Dorbin begs to dif-
fer, classifying it as a poem. Coincidentally enough, alongside that
prose poem, Bukowski had submitted a short story to the Mica edi-
tors, one of the very few that he wrote during the early 1960s. Titled
“Murder,” Mica accepted it for publication in 1962, although the
magazine was discontinued before it was actually printed. Bukowski
submitted it to Evergreen Review that year, but it was rejected. It
was finally published in John Bryan’s Notes from Underground #1 in
1964, and, probably unbeknownst to him, it was reprinted in Open
City #81 in 1968. After ten years of rejection and acceptance by sev-
eral periodicals, “Murder” was collected under a new title, “The
Blanket,” in Erections.
Several obscure littles printed Bukowski’s poetry in 1962, such as
Midwest, Mummy, Outcry, and Sun. The latter was a mimeo edited by
Tracy Thompson, who, alongside Bukowski, was one of the most pub-
lished poets of the decade. The periodical was so poorly produced and
the type so blurry that, upon receiving his contributor’s copies, Bukowski
was not able to make out his own poems. It is not surprising, then,
that he accused most little magazine publishers of editorial carelessness.
El Corno Emplumado, a little put together by Sergio Mondragón and
Margaret Randall in Mexico D.F., published Bukowski’s work in 1962
as well. Bukowski was essentially apolitical and he rarely discussed poli-
tics in print, although in 1965 he confided to Tom McNamara that he
“used to lean slightly toward the liberal left” (Screams 177), and, yet,
he was delighted to appear in a little with a strong political content such
as El Corno Emplumado. While he probably considered the magazine a
mere outlet for his prolific output, Margaret Randall took pride in pub-
lishing authors such as Bukowski: “We tried to recognize the new and
innovative work that was being done at the time. Many of the poets
we published for the first or second time eventually came to be among
the great poets of our generation. That was one of our trademarks
you might say, one of our contributions” (Randall). Indeed, El Corno
Emplumado, as many other littles, helped Bukowski become popular
in the early to mid-1960s.
The Black Cat Review was another relevant publication in
Bukowski’s early career. The editor, Neeli Cheery, later known as Neeli
Cherkovski, would write the first biography of Bukowski in 1991 after
a long, mutually rewarding love/hate relationship born out of that pub-
lication. Jory Sherman had made him aware of Bukowski’s work and,
after reading his poetry for the first time, Cherkovski reminisced that
his “reaction was one of amazement . . . My parents owned a bookstore
then and we received many of these smaller publications . . . I began to
collect work for my magazine. Bukowski sent a batch of poems. I took
one and, unfortunately, returned the others” (“Man”). Cherkovski
published Bukowski again in Understatement in 1967, coedited Laugh
Literary and Man the Humping Guns with Bukowski from 1969 to
1971, and coedited as well the Anthology of L.A. Poets in 1972 with
Bukowski and Paul Vangelisti.
Bukowski submitted a group of poems to Gerard Malanga in 1962
for their publication in Wagner Literary Magazine; while Malanga
did not publish any of those poems in the journal, he kept them
without an explanatory note and he printed them in other maga-
zines over the years, which on the one hand stresses the editorial
sloppiness Bukowski despised so much and, on the other, the devo-
tion that many little magazine editors showed for Bukowski’s work.
In a February 1963 letter to Jon Webb, when he was assembling It
Catches My Heart in Its Hands, Bukowski mentioned his submission
to Malanga. The nine poems were to be published by Rizzoli in a
volume titled An Anthology of Modern American Poems, but the proj-

ect was cancelled.
As in the case of “Murder”/“The Blanket,” these poems endured a
long publishing journey before they were eventually collected in a book.
Five of the poems submitted to Malanga appeared in Nadada, Signet,
Intransit, and The Reater before making it to posthumous collections.
Four of them remain unpublished. This long journey through the lit-
tles could be taken as a metaphor of Bukowski’s own literary career: he
needed decades of rejection and acceptance before being finally acknowl-
edged as a major figure in American letters. Malanga himself stressed
his contribution to Bukowski’s recognition: “[E]arly on . . . I was in a
position to be one of Buk’s earliest supporter/promoters and through
the 1960s my endeavors continued where I was able to finally pub-
lish his poetry” (Malanga). Malanga published Bukowski again in the
Transatlantic Review #52 (1975), edited by Joseph F. McCrindle, in a
special section of the magazine titled “An Anthology of New American
Poetry,” where Bukowski appeared alongside Allen Ginsberg, David
Ignatow, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and many other well-known authors.
As the appendix shows, the number of periodical appearances dropped

noticeably in 1962–1963. There were no new chapbooks in 1963,
and It Catches My Heart in Its Hands (1963) was comprised of old
poems. Although there was usually a lag between submission and
publication, most—if not all—of the material published in 1963 had
been penned in 1962 or early 1963. In other words, Bukowski’s liter-
ary production declined dramatically in 1962–1963, which explains
the decrease in publications. Bukowski himself acknowledged that
the death of Jane Cooney Baker in January 1962 took a toll on him.
As the correspondence of the period reveals, he slumped into a severe
depression, which translated into very little—yet powerful—writing.
The few poems following Baker’s death were beautifully grief-stricken,
definitely among his most accomplished love poems ever. They first
appeared in the littles, and they were later collected in The Days Run
Away Like Wild Horses over the Hills (1969) and posthumous vol-
umes such as Open All Night (2000) or The Flash of Lightning Behind
the Mountain (2003). It is virtually impossible to establish to which
extent Baker’s passing disrupted Bukowski’s output, but 1963 was the
worst year of the decade in terms of little magazine appearances.
That year, Bukowski’s work was featured again in Coastlines, El
Corno Emplumado, Epos, Northwest Review, Outcry, Signet, Targets,
and the Wormwood Review, among several other littles. His censored
contribution to the symposium on the little magazines appeared in
Mainstream in 1963, and his first interview ever in print was pub-
lished the same year in Literary Times. The newspaper had a circula-
tion of about 2,000 copies per issue, a figure considerably larger than
that of most little magazines. Interviews such as this one were efficient
vehicles for exposure. Nevertheless, this interview was not particularly
memorable. As interviewer Arnold Kaye reminisced, “[H]e was mildly
drunk. I wasn’t very happy with him, and I felt he was sneering at me
a bit . . . He was not reluctant to meet with me, but didn’t have a clue
what to say. And he still thought of himself as a Postal Worker, not a
writer” (“Kaye”). Despite the tense tone of the interview, the Literary
Times proved an excellent outlet for Bukowski in the years to come,
publishing poems and essays, reviews of his books, and advertisements
for forthcoming chapbooks or records, such as “Bukowski Talking.”
Sales of the record were expected to contribute toward publishing the
Webbs’s The Outsider #4/5, but the recording project was eventu-
ally cancelled. Most importantly, Nash published Cold Dogs in the
Courtyard in 1965, which had the dubious honor of being the only
book that Bukowski ever edited in his long career—although he was
credited as coediting Terpentin on the Rocks (1978), all the editing was
actually done by Weissner.
The three main little magazines that unremittingly promoted
Bukowski’s work in the 1960s were The Outsider, the Wormwood
Review, and Olé. The first Olé issue came out in 1964, and the eighth
issue, the last one, in 1967. Blazek was such an ardent follower of
Bukowski’s production that he printed his poems, short stories, draw-
ings, letters, and essays, as well as reviews about his work. As noted by
several critics, Blazek considered Bukowski the leader of the ongoing
mimeo revolution. Blazek’s slogan, borrowed from Jack Conroy’s The
Anvil and reproduced in the inaugural issue, read thus: “[W]e prefer
crude vigour to polished banality,” and he defined the magazine as “a
homegrown rogue variant of Evergreen Review” (107). Indeed, the
slapdash nature of Olé stood in stark contrast to the sleek appearance
of Evergreen Review. Bukowski was so delighted by this irreverent
mimeographed venture and by its crudeness that not only did he sub-
mit his work to Blazek in large quantities, but he also suggested other
poets, such as Al Purdy, to do the same. Blazek and d. a. levy were,
undoubtedly, the main driving force behind the mimeograph move-
ment, and Bukowski underscored their relevance in the early 1980s:
“In those days most of the littles were fairly structured and snobbish.
When Blazek and d.a. came along with their mimeos it gave a few of
us some working room” (Reach 33). d. a. levy’s the Marrahwannah
Quarterly and Blazek’s Olé were indeed the epitome of the mimeos.
Apart from publishing Bukowski’s work in all Olé issues, Blazek

was also instrumental in persuading Bukowski to produce fiction in
larger quantities. While critics asserted that Blazek was “responsible
for getting Bukowski to write prose again,” and maintained that
“Bukowski’s involvement with Ole helped propel him back to prose,
an event of no small significance in his life” (Baughan 43; Cherkovski,
Hank 160), such claims, which have snowballed into unquestion-
able facts in biographies and critical studies, are not entirely accu-
rate because Bukowski published prose pieces in the early 1960s,
albeit not many. Nomad printed his prose “manifesto” in 1960;
Simbolica two of his prose “dialogues” in 1960–1961; the Anagogic
& Paideumic Review a prose poetry “monologue” in 1960; Canto
a short story in 1961; Mainstream his censored contribution to the
symposium on the little magazines in 1963; Literary Times an essay
titled “Examining My Peers” in 1964, and Notes from Underground
the short story “Murder” in 1964 as well, not to mention the lost
stories and essays submitted to Hearse and Midwest. All those prose
pieces predated “A Rambling Essay on Poetics and the Bleeding Life
Written While Drinking a Six-Pack (Tall)” (1965), which was the first
time Blazek published Bukowski’s prose in Olé.
However, it is true that Blazek’s insistence on prodding Bukowski
into writing longer and more accomplished prose pieces turned out
to be a fruitful experience. “A Rambling Essay,” a “ranter” accord-
ing to Bukowski (Reach 33), was enthusiastically received by the Olé
readership. Bukowski expressed as much in 1965, stressing Blazek’s
spiritedness for running such an unusual piece: “ [I]t was kind of a
loose thing, but have gotten more comment on that than on anything
I have written, and I doubt that any other mag slick slim or snobbish
would have run it” (Screams 174). Encouraged by the positive recep-
tion of that ranter, Bukowski proceeded to write a lengthy short story
or novella titled “Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with
Beasts,” which Blazek put out as a chapbook under his Mimeo Press
imprint in August 1965.
“Confessions” featured the first appearance in print of Bukowski’s
fictional alter ego, “Henry Chinaski”—interestingly, in a short story
titled “The Reason Behind Reason,” published in Matrix in 1946,
the main character was named “Chelaski.” Like “A Rambling Essay,”
“Confessions” was well received, which propelled Bukowski to write
yet another short story with an arresting title, “All the Assholes in the
World and Mine” in early 1966, which Blazek published as a chap-
book via his Open Skull Press in September 1966. By the mid-1960s,
Cherkovski noted, the increasing acceptance of his prose outbursts
“led him to eventually be able to support himself as an artist and

to gain a truly international audience” (Hank 160). Indeed, after
the success of the short stories published by Blazek and the expo-
sure received through the mimeographed magazines, it seemed that
readers and critics alike were beginning to seriously acknowledge
Bukowski’s literary efforts.
Nevertheless, it took several years for that international recogni-
tion to become apparent. In the summer of 1965, when Cold Dogs in
the Courtyard came out, Bukowski was still edging his way through
the literary turmoil of the mimeograph revolution. Jay Robert Nash,
who “published the venomous Literary Times in Chicago, a sporadic
experiment in bringing journalism, literature and pugilistics together”
(Fulton 29), had printed Bukowski’s work in several issues of the
newspaper from 1963 onward, partly prodded by its literary editor,
Ron Offen. Nash and Offen offered Bukowski to bring out a new
chapbook via their Cyfoeth Publications imprint. Bukowski agreed,
provided that he was allowed to select his own poems. As in the case
of Flower, Fist, the gestation process was agonizingly long, as if it
were a fierce boxing match between Nash and Bukowski. Bukowski
mentioned the chapbook to Neeli Cherkovski as early as April 1963.
Two years later, after many a bitter, reproachful letter to Nash, the
chapbook was finally released: “Nash has been slow in getting this
out,” Bukowski stoically confided to Richmond (“Unpublished” July
27, 1965). By the mid-1960s, he was so used to the careless edit-
ing of most small press publishers that his complaints were no longer
vitriolic.
Bukowski did pick out the poems for Cold Dogs. Significantly
enough, he chose to print previously rejected poetry instead of new
material, hence the title: Bukowski considered those poems his own
stray dogs. He explained the selection process in the foreword to the
chapbook: “I went through the magazines looking for the turned-
away poems. I found 20 poems I wish I had never written, 20 I didn’t
give a damn about one way or the other. The others you will find in
here” (“Foreward” [sic] 3). He concluded the foreword with a conde-
scending statement that revealed that his editorial decision to include
rejected material was not entirely accurate: “And Jon, Rob, Carl,
E. V., I forgive you—this time” (ibid.)
To fully understand this apparently innocuous comment, a recapit-
ulation is called for: Jon [Webb] had published It Catches My Heart in
Its Hands in October 1963, Rob [Cuscaden], Run with the Hunted in
the summer of 1962, Carl [Larsen], Longshot Pomes for Broke Players
in late 1961, and E. V. [Griffith], Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail in
October 1960. An analysis of the 13 poems printed in Cold Dogs

indicates that Jon Webb was the only editor who could have rejected
all of them. The other three editors could have discarded four poems
only, the ones published before 1962. Two other poems had already
appeared in Poems and Drawings (1962); since those two poems had
not been rejected before, editors Tullos and Thorne were spared
Bukowski’s accusations. Webb was the only editor who could have
turned down the remaining seven poems.
Bukowski’s comment was misleading since only four out of the
thirteen poems published in Cold Dogs could have been rejected by
Webb, Cuscaden, Larsen, or Griffith, and Webb was the only edi-
tor who could have discarded the bulk of them. In addition, two
of the poems did not even qualify as “cold dogs” as they had never
been confined to the “courtyard.” As Bukowski made it abundantly
clear, he was dissatisfied with the selections made by Griffith, Larsen,
and Cuscaden for his earliest chapbooks, and Cold Dogs was the ideal
vehicle to take revenge on them. Yet, it is obvious that, as in the case
of Harlequin or Renaissance, Bukowski’s editorial decisions and com-
ments could be deliberately deceiving.
Painting as Passion
Months before Nash finally released Cold Dogs in the summer of
1965, after over a two-year delay, Bukowski had embarked on yet
another uncommon venture. While Cold Dogs was the only book he
edited, Atomic Scribblings from a Maniac Age was to be an uncharac-
teristic volume of drawings with a few interspersed poems. However,
despite Bukowski’s intense, passionate involvement in the project, it
was finally aborted when the publisher, Wayne Philpot, vanished with
Bukowski’s drawings in 1966. Philpot, who had printed Bukowski’s
poetry in his little magazine Border in January 1965, was probably
stunned by the quality of the drawings and doodles Bukowski self-
lessly decorated his lengthy letters with. Philpot requested several
drawings and, one of them, titled “Sunday Afternoon in Heaven,”
graced the front cover of Border #2 in April 1965. Bukowski’s illus-
trations had such an impact on Philpot that it immediately prompted
him to tackle the book of drawings and poems: “I have a proposition
that may . . . or may not . . . interest you . . . Border Press . . . would like
to bring out a limited edition of Buk’s drawings (black & white) with
only a few poems along w/them (4 or 5)” (Davidson, April 9, 1965).
Bukowski gladly complied by sending dozens of drawings to Philpot
during the ensuing months.
Bukowski was corresponding with several authors and editors at

the time, and he discussed the ongoing project with them. As he con-
fided to Purdy in June 1965, he had already begun “a book of poems
and drawings, mostly drawings, untitled and undone so far, but that
I will work up in a couple of months for Border Press” (The B./Purdy
Letters 79). Bukowski so enthused about the notion of having his
drawings published in book form that he even showed them to Henry
Miller in an August 1965 letter. Two months later he declared to
Purdy that he was still working on Atomic Scribblings. In an undated
letter from Philpot to Bukowski, probably from late 1965, he listed
the 15 drawings he had accepted so far for the book: “Easel of a
Fanatic with Indigestion,” “The Death of Karl Marx,” and “Portrait
of a Dog Elected to a Senatorial Seat” were the titles of some of the
drawings to be published in Atomic Scribblings.
Promotional flyers, order forms, and advertisements were issued in
late 1965. However, in yet another infuriating practice among small
press and little magazine editors, the project came to nothing with-
out a single explanatory note. Bukowski, who had undergone simi-
lar experiences, such as the joint Corrington/Bukowski chapbook
cancelled by Marcus Smith in 1962, suspected that Philpot’s artis-
tic enterprise would not be completed, and he remarked as much to
Douglas Blazek, who had advertised Atomic Scribblings in Olé in early
1966: “Please do not run any more ads . . . this guy does not respond to
inquiry and evidently isn’t going to publish the thing, yet he’s hook-
ing all the $3.50’s [retail price] that come in and make me look like a
crook” (Gotlieb, July 6, 1966). Almost six months later, in November
1966, Bukowski confirmed his suspicions to Marvin Malone, and in
November 1967 he summed up the episode to Allen De Loach, edi-
tor of Intrepid, where his work appeared in several issues in the late
1960s and early 1970s: “I sat up night and day for 3 weeks, drunk,
naked, laughing to myself, awakening in the morning . . . covered with
india ink . . . I gave him a title . . . Atomic Scribblings Upon a Farting
World and mailed the batch to him. I saw ads for the book here and
there. I wrote Wayne. No response” (“Letter to De Loach” 105–106).
For some unfathomable reason, Bukowski concluded, Philpot burned
all the drawings.
However, not all those sketches were destroyed because 11 of them
eventually surfaced in 1971 in the second issue of Harrison Street
Review, a little magazine edited by John Arnoldy and Lawrence Alton
(figure 3.1). According to the editors, the drawings were “part of a
series in the fifties that were to have been published under the title
Figure 3.1 “Elevator,” one of the many drawings intended for Atomic
Scribblings from a Maniac Age, eventually published in Harrison Street
Review in 1971.
Photo of a Dogs Heart. Drawings lent by Wayne Philpot” (Bukowski,

“Portfolio” 20). Inaccuracies and change of title notwithstanding,
Bukowski confirmed to Arnoldy that Philpot had disappeared with
his illustrations without further notice: “On Philpot the story is
sad . . . he dropped out of contact after I’d drawn him up 2 or 3 hun-
dred drawings” (Lilly: Am. Lit., June 2, 1971). When asked about
Philpot and his lending the drawings to the magazine, Arnoldy’s reply
did not cast light on a rather unusual chain of events: “He said his
name was Wayne Philpot and he had a cache of drawings by Charles
Bukowski that he wanted to donate to Harrison Street Review. We
thanked him . . . we never saw him again or learned how he had come
into possession of the drawings” (Arnoldy). At any rate, even if two
or three hundred illustrations had been destroyed or lost, Bukowski
was joyous to see his drawings in print. Bukowski had always believed
that his drawings and Thurberesque doodles were as valid an art form
as any, and the fact that he attended art classes in late 1956 and early
1957 at Los Angeles City College, where he tried a wide range of
styles (figure 3.2), corroborates his passion for painting. Despite the
five-year delay, it is undeniable that Bukowski was delighted to learn
that some of the Atomic Scribblings drawings had been finally made
available to the public.
Editors and publishers acknowledged Bukowski’s art by printing
his drawings in their publications. As early as 1946, Whit Burnett,
the legendary editor of Story, urged him on several occasions to sub-
mit more sketches to the magazine. Bukowski explained to Burnett
that he did not have “any other pen sketches, without stories, right
now. Matrix took the only one I did that way” (Princeton, April 27,
1947). Indeed, Matrix had reproduced a somewhat atypical Bukowski
drawing to illustrate his short story “The Reason Behind Reason,”
published in the summer of 1946 issue. Even though Burnett did not
recall having published him in Story, much to Bukowski’s chagrin, he
was especially fond of his sketches, always mentioning them in glowing
terms: “It was pleasant to hear from you again, and particularly to see
your wonderful drawings” (Princeton, March 29, 1952). Since all the
short stories from the mid- to late 1940s were hand-printed, Bukowski
illustrated them lavishly to highlight them, as he noted to Caresse
Crosby, Portfolio editor. While he claimed that he had destroyed all
the rejected short stories from that period, he occasionally requested
some of them to be returned because he was more proud of the draw-
ings than of the stories themselves. In 1948, he asked Burnett to send
back the short story “A Kind, Understanding Face” because the draw-
ings “came out especially well” (Princeton, November 1948).
Figure 3.2 Uncharacteristically classic drawing done by Bukowski while attending art
classes at Los Angeles City College in 1956–1957, later immortalized in the poem “Cows
in Art Class.”
Figure 3.3 First page of a 1946 letter addressed to Caresse Croby, editor
of Portfolio.
Bukowski’s letters were embellished with drawings as well, and the

center sections and front covers of the Black Sparrow Press volumes
of selected correspondence evidence their relevance. In some singular
cases, as in a 1946 letter to Crosby, the illustrations became stories in
themselves, where Bukowski used words as mere captions (figure 3.3).
It was an art form that he successfully cultivated in the 1970s, when
he conceived several cartoon strips for underground newspapers.
The drawings from the 1946 letter to Crosby bear a striking resem-
blance to the comic strips featured in Los Angeles Free Press almost
three decades later. Cartoons had always been yet another outlet for
Bukowski’s prolific output, and not only in letter form. He submitted
a group of them to a mainstream magazine in the mid- to late 1950s,
most probably when he was taking art classes at Los Angeles City
College with Barbara Fry. As he explained to William Corrington:
Fry once egged me on to make a bunch of cartoons with captions, the

joke bit, and I stayed up all night, drinking and making these cartoons,
laughing at my own madness . . . I mailed [them] to either the New
Yorker or Esquire . . . I wrote about my 45 cartoons and they never came
back. “No such item rec. from you,” wrote back some editor . . . [Then]
I came across one of my largest no-caption drawings (I mean, the idea
of it, it was not my drawing) upon the front cover of the New Yorker,
then, I knew I’d had it. (Centenary, April 1962)
Years later, when he was feverishly corresponding with Sheri Martinelli

in the very early 1960s, she published his first cartoon strip ever in the
Anagogic & Paideumic Review #6 (September 1961). The untitled
series was made up of nine drawings with relatively long, humorous
captions, the last of which showed Ezra Pound and Aldous Huxley
embroiled in a heated discussion.
Critics realized that editors appreciated Bukowski’s art since they
regularly published his drawings and doodles in their magazines and
chapbooks. As early as 1970, bibliographer Sanford Dorbin remarked
that Bukowski’s Poems and Drawings “included three of his drawings.
Since then a number of his books as well as some of his newspaper and
magazine appearances have featured his own art work” (“The Little
Mag” 24). Indeed, besides the unusual illustration printed in Matrix in
1946 and the cartoon strip reproduced in the Anagogic & Paideumic
Review in 1961, Bukowski’s drawings appeared on the front cover
and throughout his second chapbook, Longshot Pomes (1961), in It
Catches (1963), where drawings illustrated poems such as “Old Man,
Dead in a Room,” and “The Tragedy of the Leaves,” on the front
cover of Border #2 (1965), in several Open City issues (1967–1969),
including a captionless cartoon titled “The Horseplayer” (1967), or
in the first issue of Open City ’s literary insert, Renaissance (1968),
featuring a series of illustrations dedicated to his daughter Marina.
His artwork was similarly showcased in underground newspapers,
little magazines, and small press publications in the ensuing decades.
The most remarkable case was Los Angeles Free Press, where his fic-
tion and poetry were championed in over 200 issues, most of them
displaying his illustrations as well as several comic strips titled “The
Adventures of Clarence Hiram Sweetmeat” that Black Sparrow Press

and Paget Press subsequently issued as Dear Mr. Bukowski (1979) and
The Day It Snowed in L.A. (1986). Bukowski seemed to effortlessly
produce so many “Clarence Hiram” cartoons that in the early 1980s,
when he was no longer contributing to the Los Angeles Free Press, he
suggested to the High Times editors, who were publishing Bukowski’s
short stories on a monthly basis, that he could revive those cartoons
for their periodical, but the project never crystallized. The littles,
however, did promote his art, which appeared in the main pages of
literally hundreds of issues and even on the front cover of alterna-
tive publications such as The Sunset Palms Hotel (1974), The Moment
(1990), and the New Censorship (1991), to name a few.
Likewise, booksellers used Bukowski’s drawings to illustrate their
catalogues, hence increasing their value. Jeffrey Weinberg recalls that
Bukowski was “cooperative, friendly and humble,” and selflessly
sent him a poem and several drawings for Under the Influence, a
Bukowski-only catalogue released in 1984. Three years later, in spite
of the success brought about by the movie Barfly, Bukowski was gen-
erous enough to give away his artwork to a bookseller in Canada:
“I decided to produce a list of my Bukowski holdings for collectors,
inviting Hank to contribute a cover drawing. He doodled up four
submissions—of which I used two” (Drumbolis). Editors and pub-
lishers alike valued Bukowski’s art throughout his career by printing
his unmistakable drawings and doodles or, as in the case of Black
Sparrow Press or Loujon Press, by selling limited editions of his
books with unique paintings that turned them into highly priced col-
lectibles over time.
Indeed, John Martin realized from the very onset of their “unholy
alliance,” as Bukowski described it in “Trollius and Trellises” (9), that
Bukowski’s art was financially profitable: 90 original drawings by
Bukowski were tipped-in in the limited edition of their first lengthy lit-
erary venture, At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968), which was soon
to become a much coveted possession by collectors. Shortly before
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills was released in
late 1969, Martin asked Bukowski to produce 50 illustrations for the
signed, numbered edition, hardbound in boards, of the first compre-
hensive bibliography of his work, A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski
(1969).
Although painting was apparently the easiest art form for Bukowski,
as recounted in the short story “East Hollywood: The New Paris,”
he occasionally complained about the fact that Martin commissioned
him dozens of illustrations for each new book, as if they were strictly
mandatory. Moreover, he was acutely aware of Martin’s ulterior

motives: “I threw 30 paintings in the garbage and Martin just about
killed me . . . He claims I threw away 2 or 3 grand. Now, Sanford, you
know I didn’t throw away 2 or 3 grand, I threw away some paintings
that didn’t look good to me,” he explained to his bibliographer in
1970 (Dorbin, “Unpublished,” April 16, 1970)—the next day he sent
a similar letter to poet and friend Harold Norse, mocking Martin’s
financial concerns. Even though Martin’s businesslike vision of his
art, where paintings equated with easy money, seemed to disappoint
Bukowski, he continued to duly create hundreds of illustrations and
drawings for Black Sparrow Press up until his death in 1994. Painting
was, ultimately, a compulsion tantamount to writing, another incur-
able disease he adamantly refused to fight against.
European Acceptance
After Atomic Scribblings was discarded in 1966, that year became piv-
otal in Bukowski’s career for several reasons: John Martin printed his
first broadsides and encouraged him to write a novel, the unfinished
The Way the Dead Love. His prose appeared in two crucial under-
ground newspapers for the first time, the East Village Other and the
Los Angeles Free Press. His poetry was published in several relevant
little magazines such as Down Here, Some/thing, Dare, Grist, Blitz,
Iconolatre, and Earth Rose, with its controversial “Fuck Hate” head-
line on the front cover, among many others, and dozens of mimeo
editors put out his work as well. By 1966, the mimeograph revolution
was about to reach its peak and spread Bukowski’s literary production
across the United States.
Nevertheless, one of the most important appearances of the period
took place in a small British town, West Hartlepool, where Alex Hand
and Alan Turner published a group of Bukowski poems in their little
magazine, Iconolatre. Carl Weissner, a young German editor who
put out Klactoveedsedsteen in Heidelberg and who eventually became
Bukowski’s longtime German translator and literary agent, discovered
his work in that British magazine. Iconolatre was not his first overseas
incursion, though. Bukowski’s first European appearance was Quixote
(1956), printed in Gibraltar by Jean Rikhoff and then distributed in
Great Britain and the United States. In 1962 Satis published in its
last issue two poems in yet another English town, Newcastle-Upon-
Tyne. Malcolm Bradbury, in one of the earliest reviews on record,
noted that the Satis issue had “interesting work” by Bukowski (8).
In retrospect, critic Jim Burns considered Bukowski’s contribution as
“the most significant . . . Little was known about him in this country
in 1962” (“Satis ” 165).
In 1966, Iconolatre in England, Labris in Belgium, and Vagabond
in Germany further spread his work in Europe. Vagabond editor,
John Bennett, eloquently reminisced about reading Bukowski’s work
for the first time, and then proceeding to immediately contact him:
I’d just dropped out of the University of Munich . . . and had begun
work on the first issue of Vagabond. I’d put out feelers and was begin-
ning to tap into the underground mimeo scene that was springing up
around the U.S. Wormwood Review and Olé arrived on the same day,
and they were loaded down with Bukowski poems. I read everything
of his in both issues and was blown away. I sat right down at the type-
writer and wrote him a long wild letter. A few weeks later I got a long
wild letter back with chalk drawings of women, dogs and birds all over
it . . . With the letter came a fistful of poems. (Bennett)
Bennett’s recollection attests to the relevance of the editorial networks

of the time and, above all, to how seminal the Wormwood Review
and Olé were in unrelentingly promoting Bukowski’s work, even in
Europe. Vagabond was not the only magazine to print Bukowski’s
poetry in Germany in the 1960s. Klactoveedsedsteen in 1967, Fuck You
in 1968, and Acid, Merkur, and Silver Screen in 1969 also published
him; Fuck You, Acid, and Silver Screen were bilingual anthologies
with a strong experimental flavor, which helped Bukowski become “a
literary role model” (Freyermuth 69). Carl Weissner played a decisive
role in consolidating such status.
Alex Hand, Iconolatre editor, recalled that Bukowski’s first sub-
mission came unsolicited. Bukowski had found the little magazine
listed in Trace’s directory, which he had used continuously since the
early 1950s: “A batch of his work came out of the blue for Iconolatre
consideration. Of course we thought this Voice is absolutely superb
and I wrote to Buk asking him for more . . . Up to that point I hadn’t
seen any of his work in any of the UK little Mags” (Hand). Since the
only previously known British periodical appearance had been the last
issue of Satis, a small circulation magazine published in a relatively
little town in 1962, it is not surprising that Hand was not aware of
Bukowski’s work in Great Britain. According to Cherkovski, Weissner
received a copy of that Iconolatre issue in the spring of 1966, which
was his first exposure to Bukowski’s poetry. Weissner corroborated
Cherkovski’s assertion in several interviews, claiming that he had dis-
covered Bukowski in a “British mimeo mag out of West Hartlepool.
March 1966, a section of seven Bukowski poems . . . unlike anything
I’d ever read; hugely entertaining; accomplished in an outrageously

offhand way” (Aposhian, Free Thought 19). Weissner gave a similar
account of this crucial discovery in another interview published in
the Los Angeles Times in September 1988. In all probability, Weissner
was enthralled by such poems as “Swastika Star Buttoned to My Ass.”
Like John Bennett, Weissner promptly contacted Bukowski, who was
delighted to find yet another European editor interested in his work.
An intense, almost feverish, correspondence ensued, and in 1967
Weissner subsequently published four letters from Bukowski, along-
side five poems, in his little magazine, Klactoveedsedsteen.
Most importantly, however, in late 1969 he began to translate
Bukowski’s work into German in an attempt to make him popular in
his home country. His first translations, Notes of a Dirty Old Man,
with the apocryphal Henry Miller blurb, and Post Office, were com-
mercial failures “mostly due to poor advertising” (J. Dougherty 11),
even though Notes had been actually reviewed in mainstream periodi-
cals such as Der Spiegel. Nevertheless, his third translation was to be
a success: Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window,
a title already used for a Bukowski chapbook in 1968, “sold more
than 50,000 copies, a poetry bestseller that made Bukowski’s name
in Germany” (Miles, C. Bukowski 195). The translation of Erections
was also well received. Post Office, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, and
Factotum alongside several stories were released as Stories Und
Romane [Stories and Novels], also known as The Blue Book, eventually
selling over a hundred thousand copies. In an October 1977 letter
to John Martin, Bukowski could not conceal his joy, acknowledging
how instrumental Weissner had been in bringing about that success:
“[T]o me, those are astonishing figures, and so much of it is due to
Weissner, his translation of the works” (Living 233). The German
sales of his books would substantially increase in time, and by 1988
over 2.5 million copies had been sold in West Germany alone. This
was unheard-of for an author who, except for the underground scene,
was largely unknown in American letters.
Among the many little magazines that published Bukowski’s work

in 1966, Down Here would become a significant periodical in his
career. The editor, Michael Perkins, not only reviewed several books
by Bukowski in another alternative magazine, Poetry Newsletter, but he
also managed to persuade editor Pat Patterson to publish Bukowski’s
first self-interview ever in In New York, with an introduction by Perkins
himself. He also demonstrated that most little magazine editors wor-
shiped Bukowski’s correspondence by printing the bulk of the Tom
McNamara and Bukowski letters, originally intended to be published

in book form, in the first issue of Down Here, taking up 30 pages of
the magazine. In the second issue Perkins published “two long poems
by Buk . . . Also two more letters from Buk to McNamara” (Perkins,
“Down Here”). Reproducing so many letters in a single issue of a maga-
zine reinforces the notion of how much Bukowski’s correspondence was
valued by small press editors. Some of them published his poetry, fic-
tion, drawings, doodles, blurbs, essays, reviews, and photographs, but
his letters were always prominently displayed, even on the front cover of
a few magazine issues, such as the mimeographed Kauri in 1965.
The McNamara/Bukowski volume of letters was not the only
epistolary project to be cancelled. Letters to a Young Poet, with the
Bukowski correspondence to Richmond, suffered the same fate.
Promotional flyers were issued, but the book was never released.
Likewise, Veryl Rosenbaum, who printed Bukowski’s poetry in eight
Outcast issues in the 1960s, intended to compile a book including the
Bukowski letters to William Corrington, Douglas Blazek, and other
notable correspondents. In an attempt to get back his own letters,
Bukowski wrote an “Open Letter” in the summer of 1966 pleading
the recipients of those missives to return them as soon as possible.
However, the Webbs discouraged Rosenbaum from tackling such a
project: “The book I was collecting letters from Buk about didn’t
occur because Lou and Jon put a lot of pressure on me not to publish
such a book. They thought that a lot of Buk’s letters were written
when he was drunk and were an embarrassment to everyone (I didn’t
think so myself, but caved in)” (Rosenbaum). Bukowski himself cor-
roborated this contention in a letter to Rosenbaum: “[T]he most
crazy thing on these letters, almost all of them drunken, is that most
of the people have kept them” (Living 63). While Black Sparrow Press
and The Paget Press released five volumes of correspondence over the
years, hundreds of passionate, insightful, illuminating letters, where
Bukowski also discusses the intricacies of the little magazine scene,
remain unpublished, most notably those to his earliest editors or the
ones addressed to John Thomas and poet Harold Norse. The Norse/
Bukowski correspondence was advertised in 2002 by several major
online bookstores under the title of Fly Like a Bat Out of Hell: The
Letters of Harold Norse and Charles Bukowski, but, as in many of the
previous cases, nothing ever came of it.
Bukowski professed no allegiance to any school and, yet, all liter-
ary movements and schools published his work. For instance, in 1966
two Deep Image poets such as Jerome Rothenberg and David Antin
printed one of his poems in their magazine Some/thing —another

Deep Image poet/editor, Clayton Eshleman, reluctantly published
Bukowski in his Charles Olson-influenced magazine, Caterpillar, in
1969. Rothenberg explained the main reasons that compelled him
to feature Bukowski’s apparently artless poetry in a magazine where
elaborate, so-called language poems prevailed: “As both a poet and
personage Bukowski was one of those whom we thought of as a new
voice in poetry, both as a matter of attitude and of form. That he was
also a strong rejectionist of inherited poetic and literary stances—
whether we agreed or not—was equally appealing” (Rothenberg). Like
Marion Stocking, who had claimed that Bukowski’s poem “Treason”
was “too powerful a thing to reject” despite J. B. May’s objections,
including it in the special “underground” issue of the Beloit Poetry
Journal, Rothenberg chose to print a Bukowski poem in a magazine
where it seemed awkwardly out of place. Indeed, Rothenberg was so
enthralled by that poem that he decided to reprint it in an anthology
that he coedited with George Quasha in 1973, America a Prophecy.
Dare, also published in 1966, represents one of very few instances
where the popularity brought about by a little magazine could have
unwanted consequences. That periodical appearance also stressed that
Bukowski’s work could surface in the most unexpected publications.
As editor Jack Cashin put it, “[W]e distributed 100,000 copies dare
free to barbershops across the country . . . our readership was extremely
high, over 7,000,000 attested to the simmons research organization”
(Cashin). While not a mainstream magazine, the number of copies
distributed far exceeded the large print run of little magazines such
as Poetry and it was definitely closer to that of the underground press,
which could easily sell thirty thousand copies per issue. The subse-
quent exposure translated into an unforeseen episode that Bukowski
explained somewhat humorously to Steve Richmond in early 1967:
[S]ome guy at work met me on front steps, a small hard Negro with
little cap pulled down over his ears. ‘God damn, Hank, you’re really
full of BULLSHIT!’ ‘whatcha mean, Roy?’ ‘I saw that magazine.’
‘what magazine?’ ‘I dunno the name of it, but I saw it. about you
being a POET! what a bunch of BULLSHIT! and your photo with the
little beard.’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Roy.’ ‘no, you
KNOWS, you KNOWS WHAT EYE’S TALKING ABOUT, DON’T
BULLSHIT ME!’ It appears he saw a copy of Dare when he went to
his local barbershop. this is the poem I got the $50 for writing. easy
money but if it’s going to get these jabberwockies on my back it isn’t
worth it. (Screams 295)
Bukowski was indeed wearing a goatee in the photograph reproduced

in that issue of Dare. For someone who was used to receiving contrib-
utor’s copies in lieu of payment, 50 dollars was a considerable amount
for a single poem. Bukowski’s increasing popularity, notwithstanding
the occasional set-to with his coworkers at the post office, was begin-
ning to pay off.
Black Sparrow Press: “An Unholy

Alliance” (1966–1969)
Black Sparrow Press, launched by John Martin in Los Angeles in 1966
with the sole intention of spreading out Bukowski’s “simple, declara-
tive style” to the small press audience (E. Long 30), was a noteworthy
exception to the poor quality of most small presses. Indeed, Black
Sparrow Press’s elegant, unique designs, bearing no annoying bar
codes or blatant promotional blurbs by well-known authors, made
their books easily recognizable and a much coveted possession, espe-
cially those with original art. From day one, Martin, who deliberately
refused all forms of institutional support, was shrewd enough to pro-
duce limited editions, which generated the required funds to keep
the press afloat. For a company not breaking even in the late 1960s to
achieve financial success in the 1980s, netting over a million dollars
yearly—before the huge success and the subsequent increase in sales
brought about by the movie Barfly in 1987—can only be explained in
terms of Martin’s sheer perseverance and business-minded publishing
strategies.
Martin was one of the first editors to realize how much Bukowski
valued being paid for his work, and therefore he was prompt to remu-
nerate him for each publication released via Black Sparrow Press
from the very beginning of their association. Martin had discovered
Bukowski’s poetry in the inaugural issue of The Outsider and, since
then, he had zealously devoured all his small press publications. As
Martin himself recalled: “I had been reading Hank’s work in little
mags and I had come to the conclusion that he was our new Whitman
and a great writer. That wonderful sequence of poems in The Outsider,
#1 (Fall 1961) sealed the deal for me and after that I read everything I
could find” (J. Martin, “Buk”). Their first meeting has been recounted
in all Bukowski’s biographies and in several essays about his work.
Bukowski himself reminisced about that crucial visit in his poetry
and fiction over the years. In “Trollius and Trellises,” Bukowski thanks
Martin for having located him “somewhere between / alcoholism
and / madness” (112–14), and defines himself as “a pile / of human
rubble” (2–3) in the poem “Moving up the Ladder,” which stands in

stark contrast to Martin’s appearance, as described by Bukowski in the
short story “East Hollywood”: “He was extremely clean, scrubbed,
and carried what I thought to be a kindly and dangerous smile” (17).
Martin then solicits Bukowski poems for his newly founded Red
Vulture Press; Bukowski points to a closet, Martin opens it up and “a
mountainful of poems wavered a moment, then spilled forward onto
the rug” (17). Martin anxiously reads the bulk of them and, impressed
by the quality of many of the poems, announces: “‘I’d like to take this
one to publish as a broadside.’ . . . It was called ‘An Afternoon Stroll
Down the Avenue of Death’” (17). The unholy alliance had been
sealed. In retrospect, Locklin maintained that “[Bukowski] and Black
Sparrow were probably a marriage made in heaven” (qtd. in Aposhian,
Free Thought 16). Similarly, Martin claimed that it was as if “Rolls
met Royce . . . I knew from day one that Bukowski would become one
of the best and most important writers of his day” (Williams 44).
Martin’s unswerving faith in Bukowski’s literary production would
eventually pay off.
In any case, Martin, who was an office supplies company manager
at the time, was as good as his word and he proceeded to sell his col-
lection of literary first editions, including several valuable volumes by
D. H. Lawrence, to be able to start his small press venture with the
sole purpose of printing those poems that had captivated him during
that first visit. Martin sold his private collection to the University
of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) for fifty thousand dollars in
1966, and “the agent took a 20% commission off the top leaving
me $40,000. I paid another $5,000 in capital gains taxes and was
finally left with ca. $35,000” (J. Martin, “Your first”). In April 1966,
shortly after the sale to UCSB, Martin released the first broadside
under the Black Sparrow Press imprint, a poem by Bukowski titled
“True Story,” limited to 30 copies. Bukowski had already received
an advance of 30 dollars for each of the five broadsides that Martin
would publish in 1966: “True Story,” “On Going Out to Get the
Mail,” “To Kiss the Worms Goodnight,” “The Girls / For the
Mercy-Mongers,” and “The Flower Lover / I Met a Genius,” all of
them “handset on beautiful deckle-edged paper in editions of thirty
copies each, all signed by Hank. Twenty seven of each were for sale at
$10 each, a price which reflected the expensive paper used” (Miles,
C. Bukowski 150). Martin issued a pamphlet and a broadside with
Bukowski poetry in 1967 before publishing their first book in 1968,
At Terror Street and Agony Way. Black Sparrow Press fine produc-
tions definitely enhanced Bukowski’s reputation on the one hand,
and, on the other, they contributed to turn his books, broadsides,

and pamphlets into highly priced collectibles.
While Bukowski never had a hand in the design of his Black
Sparrow Press productions, he did send Martin several sparrow draw-
ings to be used as the company logotype, but they were eventually
discarded (figure 3.4). Martin finally settled on the one conceived by
his wife Barbara: “The first [sparrow] version was round and plump.
The second was thinner. And the final version was jet-airplane-
sleek . . . Barbara who designed the vast majority of BSP books is solely
responsible for their ‘look’” (J. Martin, “Hello!”). Contrary to popu-
lar belief, it was Barbara Martin, and not Philip Klein, who designed
Bukowski’s earliest broadsides. Klein
printed [the] first 7 broadsides for me at no cost. It was a “fun” project

for him . . . Since Klein was doing me a favor by printing them for free, I
gave him full credit . . . Barbara [worked] on the proofs of those broad-
sides, sprucing up the raw designs . . . They were the first design jobs she
ever attempted. Those broadsides began it all! (J. Martin, “Hello!”)
Interestingly, Barbara Martin, who had no graphic design education,

made all the sketches in the kitchen with barely a pencil, “an X-acto
Figure 3.4 One of the many sparrow drawings that Bukowski sent to John
Martin to be used as the logotype for Black Sparrow Press.
knife and type-and-pasting everything up” (Gerber 110). Adamantly

opposed to computers, her book covers, considered by many as stand-
alone paintings or pictures, were beautifully imperfect. Bukowski was
obviously overjoyed about her designs and the overall production,
and he overtly declared as much: “The paper and the printing are
strictly from heaven,” he confided to collector Jim Roman shortly
after “True Story” came out (Davidson, May 7, 1966).
Exquisitely designed and printed broadsides aside, Martin had
already devised an altogether different project. Bukowski’s chapbook
“Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts” had made
such an impression on him that he was convinced that Bukowski
could “write a novel that would stop the earth’s rotation” (Davidson,
January 16, 1966). In a letter to Richmond, Bukowski explained to
him that “[Martin] wants to run a book of my poems but I’m already
down to Webb on the next set. So to keep him quiet I told him
I’d write him a novel” (“Unpublished” November 1966). While it is
true that Bukowski, after the success of It Catches and Crucifix, had
agreed that the Webbs published his next volume of poetry, it was
Martin who prodded him to tackle a novel.
Bukowski wrote the first chapters in December 1966, but as early
as February 1967 he found the novel quite unsatisfactory, and he
expressed as much to Corrington: “I have started a novel myself but
don’t know if I am going to finish it . . . there is a guy [Martin] who
says he is going to publish the novel . . . He says he’ll run a thousand
copies, one hundred hardback” (Centenary, February 10, 1967). In
an interview for the Tucson Daily Citizen, Bukowski mentioned the
title of the novel for the first time, insisting on the fact that he was
not pleased with the project: “‘A guy has me doing a bloody novel,
under protest, The Way the Dead Love’ . . . The novel (now six chap-
ters long) is a new writing experience for Bukowski” (Pavillard 9).
According to Cherkovski, Bukowski had completed seven chapters by
“early summer 1967” (Hank 191), which Bukowski corroborated in
late July to William Wantling, claiming that he had “the first 6 or 7
chapters done” (Screams 307). He briefly discussed the contents of
the novel in the self-interview published in In New York in 1967, but
it was abandoned during the summer of that year as no further refer-
ences are known to exist.
In unmistakable bukowskian fashion, the unfinished novel was
recycled, reworked, and partially excised and reprinted before being
collected. Chapters three, four, and five, referred to as “excerpts from
Charles Bukowski’s novel in progress,” appeared in the first issue of
the little magazine Congress in the spring of 1967, much to the editor’s
chagrin: “[Bukowski] was sending stuff out to anyone and everyone. I

really wanted ferlinghetti and ginsberg. Had to settle for what I could
get. Took the best of what was sent in” (Seiffer). Chapter six appeared
in Open City #33 (December 15, 1967); it was a controversial chapter
that, despite its deliberately humorous tone, caused many a heated
debate as the main character of the story, “Hank,” mistakenly per-
forms anal sex on a high-school male friend of his, “Baldy,” because
in his drunkenness he confuses his friend with a woman. This chapter
was later reprinted in Bukowski’s Notes of a Dirty Old Man, published
by Essex House in January 1969.
Chapters three, four, and five were reprinted in A Bukowski Sampler
in July 1969. The first three chapters appeared in the July 27, 1973,
issue of the Los Angeles Free Press. All chapters from the original manu-
script, save chapters five and six, were finally collected by Black Sparrow
Press in South of No North in December 1973. Chapter seven, with
substantial changes, was published in the July 1985 issue of Hustler as
a short story titled “The Lady with the Legs,” uncollected to date. It
is evident that, as most chapters were repeatedly printed by small press
publishers or underground and little magazine editors, Bukowski’s
fiction was enthusiastically hailed and received. However, Martin’s
attempts to persuade Bukowski to complete a novel were not success-
ful until February 1970, when Post Office was eventually finished.
Apart from sealing his unholy alliance with Martin, being discov-
ered in Iconolatre by his German translator and literary agent, having
his work published in countless little magazines and mimeos across
the country, and thoroughly involving himself in unfinished projects
such as Atomic Scribblings and the Way the Dead Love, 1966 was a
crucial year as well because his prose was printed for the first time in
important underground newspapers such as the East Village Other
[EVO] or the Los Angeles Free Press [L.A. Freep]. The latter, founded
in 1964 by Arthur Kunkin, was the first newspaper to be published
on a steady basis for a long period of time, featuring regular columns
by Lawrence Lipton, Harlan Ellison, and other well-known authors.
While EVO editor John Wilcock claimed that it was unanimously
agreed that newspapers should be subordinated to the ongoing revo-
lution, Kunkin stressed that the L.A. Freep also embraced nonpoliti-
cal areas: “I wanted a paper that would draw together all the diverse
elements in the community, and that would be not only political,
but cultural as well” (Peck 21). Bukowski relished being championed
by both alternative publications, especially by Kunkin’s. Similarly to
the freedom and the exposure granted by Open City from 1967 to
1969, the L.A. Freep unremittingly promoted Bukowski’s work from

1966 to 1976, printing over 225 weekly contributions, including the
“Notes of a Dirty Old Man” columns, poems, self-interviews, draw-
ings and doodles, letters, and several “The Adventures of Clarence
Hiram Sweetmeat” comic strips.
The L.A. Freep significantly boosted Bukowski’s popularity in the
underground scene. As Peck remarked, it was “the most mainstream
of the major underground papers . . . A printing plant, and bookstores
in Fairfax, Westwood, and Pasadena, made for a $2-million-a-year,
150-employee corporation” (150; 187), and its press run figures
were definitely remarkable, even disproportionate when compared
to the limited circulation of most little magazines: 50,000 copies per
issue were distributed by early 1967, and almost 100,000 copies by
mid-1968. Nevertheless, dissonant voices were prompt to criticize
Kunkin’s editorial policies and his apparently excessive hunger for
growth: “[I]t began as a ‘forum for the liberal and intellectual com-
munity’ . . . but the paper wound up as one man’s ego trip. So much
for revolutionary solidarity” (Apostolides 32–33). By 1969 most
underground newspapers almost exclusively survived on sex adver-
tisements, and the L.A. Freep was no exception: “They [L.A. Freep
and Berkeley Barb] ran the kind of sex want ads that the [Village]
Voice had always turned down . . . the sex classifieds at once became
the most talked-about feature of the new papers . . . [Most readers]
couldn’t have cared less about the Freep or Barb ’s bohemianism
or Leftist politics” (Black 29, 74). These were clearly minor issues
for Bukowski since he considered the L.A. Freep yet another outlet
for his literary production, and he was not to be bothered with the
newspaper’s political stance or lack thereof.
His first contribution to Kunkin’s periodical, a review of the Antonin
Artaud Anthology published by City Lights in 1965, appeared in the
April 22, 1966, issue. The March 17, 1967, issue featured a dialogue
titled “Bukowski Meets a Merry Drunk.” Most importantly, that same
year a lengthy interview conducted by John Thomas, arrestingly titled
“This Floundering Old Bastard Is the Best Poet in Town,” definitely
enhanced his reputation among the large readership of the newspa-
per, as Bukowski noted in his correspondence. The EVO, founded by
John Wilcock, Walter Bowart, and Allan Katzman, also stressed the
relevance of Bukowski’s prose by reprinting an excerpt of his short
story “All the Assholes” in the November 1–15, 1966, issue, barely
two months after its release as a chapbook under Douglas Blazek’s
Open Skull Press imprint. While the EVO and the L.A. Freep pub-
lished Bukowski’s fiction in the 1970s as well, their early support of
Bukowski’s material proved to be invaluable as it paved the way for the

success that he subsequently achieved in Open City.
Evergreen Review or the Road to Fame

Whilst Open City could be considered Bukowski’s most relevant peri-
odical appearance in 1967, Evergreen Review dramatically contrib-
uted to enhance his reputation on the one hand, and, on the other,
its large circulation made his work available to a readership that prob-
ably exceeded that of all the littles published during the decade. Yet,
oddly enough, the significance of this magazine in Bukowski’s career
remains unacknowledged in all critical studies to date. The first issue of
Evergreen Review, edited by Donald Allen and Barney Rosset, appeared
in 1957, a crucial year in the period preceding the literary revolution
of the 1960s. The inaugural issue was wholeheartedly received and
the magazine was soon considered a literary quarterly, which displayed
new Bohemian, Beat, antiestablishment, and radical voices.
As Felix Pollak put it, “[Evergreen Review] didn’t fit into the 200–
2000 circulation frame even at its beginning, but it was a genuine little
when it started, avant-gardish, adventuresome, international-minded,
wide-open, almost wide-eyed in its search for newness and intellectual
excitement” (“What” 72). The experimental nature of the periodical
favored nonmainstream writers such as L. Ferlinghetti, P. Blackburn,
or Barbara Guest, helping them become more popular. Indeed, those
alternative authors had an unprecedented readership, as Clay noted:
“Evergreen Review was typically published in print runs exceeding
100,000 copies and thus was able to deliver the ‘underground’ to a
large audience” (103). However, since the magazine was sponsored
by a relatively important publishing house, Grove Press, with a larger
budget than most literary magazines, it could not qualify as “little.”
Bukowski himself expressed this view in a “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”
column published in Open City in December 1967: “Evergreen isn’t a
‘little’ magazine, please remember that” (“Notes” 12).
At any rate, the original nonconformist flavor that permeated the
first issues of the magazine was soon replaced, after Donald Allen’s
departure, by a coarser approach to literature. J. B. May remarked
almost furiously that by the early 1960s the periodical had become a
“slick-mag, double-cousin of a UPS tabloid, pandering to sensational
sex, with fewer earnest criticisms of the milieu and fewer significant
writers” (24). Given the fact that Bukowski appeared for the first time
in the magazine in the December 1967 issue, when renowned authors
no longer populated its pages and it had little literary zest, Baughan’s
contention seems unsatisfactory: “Evergreen represented for Bukowski

a kind of loophole into the canon of serious literature, through which
he might gain entrance without having to compromise his vocifer-
ously stated anti-intellectualism” (47). Rather, Bukowski did not
need to sacrifice his style nor his voice precisely because Evergreen
Review had forsaken the aforementioned canon, and his apparently
artless, gritty production was warmly received.
Bukowski had first submitted a short story titled “Murder” to
Evergreen Review in 1962. After being rejected several times by the
magazine, he confided to Hale Chatfield, who had published Bukowski
in the journal The Hiram Poetry Review, that “[I] got rid of a couple
of poems at Evergreen Review, which I thot would never happen”
(Chatfield, February 7, 1967). Indeed, in the poem “ . . . American
Express, Athens, Greece” printed in Wormwood Review in July 1965,
Bukowski complained that he could not make those “golden outhouses
of / culture and have long since / given up” (29). Nevertheless, as
in the case of Poetry and other journals, Bukowski had unrelentingly
submitted his work until it was finally accepted, and, despite his claim
in “ . . . American Express, Athens, Greece,” Evergreen Review was no
exception to his stubborn pertinacity.
A poem titled “Men’s Crapper,” published in Intrepid #7 (March
1967) was reprinted, with Intrepid editor Allen De Loach’s permis-
sion, in the December 1967 issue of Evergreen Review. Bukowski had
been corresponding extensively since 1965 with poet Harold Norse,
who was instrumental in persuading Penguin editor Nikos Stangos to
include Bukowski in the anthology Penguin Modern Poets 13 (1969).
In all likelihood, Norse had also suggested Evergreen Review coedi-
tor Seymour Krim that he print Bukowski’s work in the magazine.
Krim, who had championed Kerouac, Ginsberg, and other Beat and
alternative authors in girlie magazines such as Swank and Nugget in
the early to mid-1960s, was probably delighted to run Bukowski’s
poetry in Evergreen Review. Furthermore, Krim had to convince the
other editors of Bukowski’s stature as a poet, as Bukowski explained
to Norse: “[Krim] said he was trying to break down resistance and get
them to take the poem” (Lilly: Norse, November 3, 1967). The poem
was indeed accepted and Bukowski expressed to Norse his mixed feel-
ings about being finally published in such a well-known and relatively
respected periodical:
Got Evergreen 50 today with my short poem in there, way in the

back, the thing is shot with the famous, so there they are: Tennessee
Williams, John Rechy, Leroi Jones, Karl Shapiro . . . but the writing is
bad . . . I am probably writing all this shit about Evergreen because I

have a bad conscience and fear that I am slipping as a good writer in
order to get into their slick pages. On the other hand, there is a kind
of kid’s Christmas joy at opening the big stocking for the goodies.
It’s nice . . . Who wouldn’t rather appear in Evergreen than in Epos, a
Quarterly of Verse? (Lilly: Norse, December 1, 1967)
While the table of contents of Evergreen Review #50 was perhaps not
as impressive as those of the San Francisco Review #1 (1958) or The
Outsider #1 (1961), featuring e. e. cummings, William Saroyan, William
Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Henry Miller,
William Burroughs, and Bertrand Russell, to name a few, Bukowski
was published alongside undoubtedly renowned first-rate authors.
The final question is wickedly rhetorical. Bukowski always down-
played his contributions to Epos, claiming he only submitted his most
poetic or traditional work to editors Thorne and Tullos. He also
stressed that Poems and Drawings, the special Bukowski-only Epos
issue, was the least accomplished of his early chapbooks. That appear-
ing in Evergreen Review might suggest he was demeaning himself as
an author was a banal justification to reassure Norse of his reputedly
unshakeable, rebellious literary spirit as an outsider of the American
underground. However, empirical evidence and factual data show
that Bukowski did not mind turning his back on his “outsider” sta-
tus to have his material published in any magazine, regardless of its
reputation in the literary circles, and Evergreen Review was definitely
no exception.
Nevertheless, in yet another perverse twist of events, and despite
the excitement caused by his first appearance in Evergreen Review,
Bukowski criticized the editors’ decision to place his poem in the final
pages of the magazine, as if it were a minor piece. According to the
letter to Norse, he received the issue with his poem on December 1,
1967, and, barely a week later, he complained bitterly in an Open City
column: “[I]n the Dec. issue of Evergreen there is a small poem by one
Charles Bukowski far in the back pages, and all through the magazine
there is an interview of Leroi Jones, poems of Leroi Jones . . . I remem-
bered him when we were both scratching to get our poetry into the
little magazines” (“Notes” 10). That Leroi Jones, later Amiri Baraka,
had rejected Bukowski’s submissions when he was editing Yugen and
Floating Bear in the late 1950s and early 1960s might account for his
resentful tone. This episode is strikingly similar to the disappoint-
ment that overcame Bukowski when he learned that Whit Burnett
had printed his first short story ever in the end pages of Story.
Bitterness and disappointments aside, Evergreen Review was a piv-

otal periodical both in promoting Bukowski’s work and in consoli-
dating his growing popularity. A second poem, “Even the Sun Was
Afraid,” appeared in the February 1969 issue. E. V. Griffith, who had
released Bukowski’s first chapbook in 1960, and who had also printed
several of his poems in Hearse, exultantly exclaimed after reading
that poem: “Finally! And belatedly! I have been wondering when, if
ever, [Evergreen Review] would discover you. I still think you are the
best damned poet Hearse ever published” (Davidson, February 10,
1969). In September of that year, the magazine ran a long short story
where Bukowski somewhat cruelly recounted his involvement in John
Bryan’s alternative newspaper Open City, aptly titled “The Birth,
Life, and Death of an Underground Newspaper,” for which he was
paid 330 dollars. Evergreen Review not only brought about a much-
needed exposure, but also a more substantial payment than that of
the littles. Bukowski soon learned the lesson and he began to submit
his most outrageous short stories to several soft-core magazines in
late 1969, which paid him considerable amounts for each of them.
The Underground Press—A Dirty

Old Man on Stage (1967–1969)
Despite the significant boost in popularity caused by Evergreen
Review, Bukowski’s most important stepping stone to success in the
late 1960s was, without question, Open City. While he first contrib-
uted to Bryan’s newspaper in May 1967, their relationship dated back
to 1959. As in the case of the other editors who had been crucial in
Bukowski’s career, such as Marvin Malone, Douglas Blazek, or Jon
Webb, to name a few who had discovered his work in the littles in
the late 1950s or early 1960s, having extensively corresponded with
him before publishing his material in their magazines, Bryan was no
exception. Critics and biographers have discussed Bukowski’s success
in Open City in a decontextualized manner, as if it were indepen-
dent from his previous literary efforts, but its connection to prior
periodical appearances is beyond question. The international recogni-
tion brought about by the “Notes” columns would probably have not
taken place if Bryan had not first published Bukowski in Renaissance,
Notes from Underground and Open City Press.
In 1959, Bukowski submitted “The Way to Review a Play and Keep
Everybody Happy But Me” to Gusher, a literary magazine edited by
Bryan in Houston that Bukowski had, in all likelihood, found in
Trace’s directory. After an agonizingly long two-year lapse, Bryan
printed the poem in his brand new periodical Renaissance. Bryan

was so impressed by Bukowski’s work that, from 1961 onward, he
published him in all his literary ventures until Open City ’s demise
in 1969. In a letter to Corrington, Bukowski remarked that Bryan
“asked if I had any poems. I gave him all my lately rejected poems
not yet torn up, 30 or 40 of them, and he made off with them”
(Centenary, April 2, 1962). Three of the poems graced the pages
of Renaissance #3 (1962) and a long letter, titled “Peace, Baby, Is
Hard-Sell,” was reproduced in Renaissance #4 (1962) as if it were an
essay about peace. When Bukowski realized that Bryan was genuinely
interested in his work, he proceeded to flood him with his work as he
customarily did with most editors in the 1960s: “He sent a couple of
hundred poems, thirty or forty short stories” (Bryan qtd. in Sounes,
Locked 54). Bryan published one of those short stories, “Murder,” in
Notes from Underground #1 (1964) alongside four poems. Two more
poems appeared in the second issue of Bryan’s new magazine in 1966,
and an essay titled “Should We Burn Uncle Sam’s Ass?” was printed
in the third issue in 1970, which was eventually collected in City
Lights’ Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook (2008).
Three years before Bryan undertook Open City, he had already
ventured into the underground press scene with an early incarnation
of the newspaper called Open City Press, where he featured a very
short story by Bukowski, “If I Could Only Be Asleep,” in its sixth
issue in 1965. Probably encouraged by the Open City Press incursion
into a more political arena and by the experience gained during his
editorial stint at Kunkin’s Los Angeles Free Press, Bryan was deter-
mined to cause a stir with a new radical alternative newspaper, Open
City. According to J. B. May, however, Bryan launched the news-
paper to express his dissatisfaction with Kunkin’s, thinking it was
reactionary. Kunkin recalled the episode somewhat differently: “John
Bryan left the Free Press and stole my mailing list to start up his own
paper . . . Bukowski published an article about this in Evergreen Review
where he recounted my visit to John’s to recover the list” (Kunkin).
Indeed, Bukowski discussed at length this and other incidents related
to Open City in his controversial short story “The Birth, Life, and
Death of an Underground Newspaper.”
Be that as it may, Bukowski voiced Kunkin’s assumption in his
narrative, claiming that the Los Angeles Free Press “accused Joe [John
Bryan] of stealing a duplicate copy of their mailing list” (“The Birth”
111–12). Several Open City assistants and contributors criticized
Bukowski of viciously, and inaccurately, depicting the character of
Bryan and his editorial decisions as well as of twisting the facts that
led to the demise of the newspaper, where he played a fundamental

role as editor of the literary insert. However, three months after the
publication of the short story in Evergreen Review, a member of Open
City ’s editorial board maintained that Bukowski’s apparent distor-
tions were anything but unfounded slander: “As the news editor of
the paper which Charles Bukowski characterizes as Open Pussy . . . I
can attest, though not many will believe me, that everything he says is
true” (Igriega 77). Regardless of the veracity of Bukowski’s fictional
account as to whether Bryan stole the Los Angeles Free Press mailing
list or not to launch his own newspaper, Open City was finally born.
Nevertheless, this was not the first newspaper that had attempted
to print Bukowski’s columns on a regular basis. As early as 1964,
when most critics and biographers mistakenly claim that Bukowski
was not writing prose, Jay Robert Nash suggested to him that he
submit a monthly contribution to Literary Times. Bukowski declined
Nash’s offer, although he did contribute further material to the news-
paper. In 1968, when his Open City ’s “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”
columns had already enjoyed an enthusiastic reception, Christopher
Watson, an underground press editor who had reprinted two “Notes”
installments in the Underground Digest, asked Bukowski to submit
more prose pieces to his National Underground Review newspaper,
offering him 25 dollars a month for two short columns. Bukowski
sent him at least three “Dirty Old Man” columns—not “Notes of
a Dirty Old Man”—which Watson published in the periodical, but
the project to print his fiction regularly did not come to fruition, and
Bukowski continued to pen his columns for Open City until it was
discontinued in 1969. In any case, it is evident that Bukowski’s prose
had undoubtedly enthralled the underground press editors since the
mid-1960s, and that his “Notes” contributions appeared in over 200
Los Angeles Free Press issues in the 1970s and in dozens of issues of
other periodicals in the 1980s, such as High Times, Smoke Signals
or Los Angeles Weekly, reveals the sustained interest in his fiction
throughout his literary career.
Open City was the first newspaper to regularly feature Bukowski’s
“Notes” columns, which appeared in 90 of the 93 issues that Bryan
published from May 1967 to March 1969. His first contribution, a
review of A. E. Hotchner’s Papa Hemingway titled “An Old Drunk
Who Ran Out of Luck,” was published in the May 5–11, 1967, issue
of the newspaper. The next installment, which was the first one to
bear the title “Notes of a Dirty Old Man,” appeared in Open City
the following week. The last issue of this alternative periodical came
out during the first week of March 1969, and it ran the last “Notes”
column as well as a review of Bukowski’s book Notes of a Dirty Old

Man, a compendium of the best “Notes,” published by Essex House
in January 1969. The review, signed by Bukowski, was appropriately
titled “Bukowski on Bukowski.” In between those three issues, Bryan
printed 88 “Notes” installments where he allowed Bukowski to give
free rein to his most outrageous, controversial material.
A reviewer of the Essex House book stated that, contrary to popular
belief, it had been Bukowski, and not Bryan, who had come up with
the idea of calling the columns “Notes of a Dirty Old Man,” while
stressing the carte blanche given to him to write with the utmost
freedom: “I always thought the title [of the column] was Bryan’s idea;
it has that sordid Open City ring to it. But no—I wrote to Bukowski
and asked him—the title was his idea, ‘so that I could write “notes”
or anything which pleased me’” (Gold 32). Bukowski confirmed both
assumptions in an interview conducted in 1992, all the while stressing
that this fiction had “nothing to do with Peace and Love, Anti-War,
pro-drug culture, I despised all that . . . I just got hot and the outlet
was there” (Backwords, “World War II” 45). Bukowski was not con-
cerned with the underlying ideology of any periodical as long as his
work was published as frequently as possible. As a matter of fact, he
repeatedly underscored Open City ’s antiestablishment environment
in rather disparaging terms.
Given his overtly antihippy stance and the absolute freedom to
express his views, Open City was the ideal outlet for exercising his dis-
ciplined approach to creativity, where he wrote about past and pres-
ent experiences, pondered about suicide, ridiculed Flower Power and
other hippy mottoes, recounted sexual encounters, replied to the furi-
ous letters of many an aggrieved reader, and even unabashedly adver-
tised his own books. As Locklin summed it up: “He was not only
permitted to let it all hang out, he was encouraged in his explicitness,
vulgarity, antiacademicism, fearlessness, and abuse of all orthodoxies,
the liberal not excluded” (“Setting” 27). While Bukowski criticized
the counterculture spirit that permeated the publication and he disap-
proved of the drug-taking habits of the staff, he soon realized that the
leeway given to him was not the only benefit he would reap.
He was evidently satisfied with the sense of immediacy provided by
the newspaper: “[I sat] down with a beer and hit the typer on a Friday
or a Saturday or a Sunday and by Wednesday the thing is all over
the city” (Foreword, Notes 6–7). Bukowski was not dramatizing; for
instance, he received the first Evergreen Review issue with one of his
poems on December 1, 1967, he then proceeded to write a scathing
column about how the Leroi Jones contributions overshadowed his
poem, and barely a week later the critical piece appeared in Open City.
In all likelihood, this process reminded him of the mimeograph revo-
lution, when his work was immediately published upon reception.
In addition, Open City brought about recognition and success.
The little magazines, small press publications, and underground
newspapers were, in many cases, the source of mutually rewarding
experiences between the editors of those periodicals and Bukowski.
Open City was yet another instance of such a fruitful alliance. As
Miles succinctly put it, “‘Notes of a Dirty Old Man’ finally made
Bukowski famous” (C. Bukowski 158). John Bryan corroborated such
an assertion, stressing the quality of Bukowski’s contributions to the
newspaper: “His columns in Open City . . . were undoubtedly the best
material we printed. They helped to make the paper a Minor League
success . . . Bukowski leapt out of the shadowy, semi-private world of
tiny litmags and burst upon a bright-lit, public stage” (30–31). While
payment was modest, ten dollars per column, Bukowski received an
unprecedented and sustained exposure in the underground literary
scene. The magnitude of such an increase in readership was sized
up differently: in 1974, Gerard Melling claimed in a New Zealander
magazine that Open City “put Bukowski firmly into the front-line of
contemporary American writing. It made him international” (“Notes”
6), while in 1978 Ron Blunden remarked in a Parisian newspaper that
Bukowski merely “gained some measure of local fame as a columnist
for . . . Open City ” (15).
Ascertaining the real scope of the popularity caused by Open City
is an issue open to speculation, but the newspaper was undoubtedly
a fundamental stepping stone to success in Bukowski’s career and he
would always acknowledge its importance. In a 1987 interview, he
lamented its demise, emphasizing its significance in regards to the
other underground periodicals he contributed to at the time: “Those
were great days writing a column for the hippie newspapers . . . Open
City was the best of them all. It was a sad and terrible day when John
Bryan had to close it down” (Backwords, “Greatest” 1). Bukowski’s
editorial decisions when assembling the second issue of Renaissance
contributed to the suspension of the newspaper, but his distressed
tone in the 1987 interview reveals that he did appreciate Bryan’s liter-
ary venture.
Incidentally, as in the case of Dare in 1966, when a postal coworker
scolded Bukowski for publishing poetry, success and popularity could
have unpleasant consequences. In an episode included in most biog-
raphies about Bukowski, on February 8, 1968, he was summoned by
the postal authorities after they had been warned about his “Notes”
columns in Open City, where he had depicted the postal institution

in rather bleak terms in the January 12–17, 1968, issue, claiming it
was “the worst place you can be” (“Notes” 12). Two months later,
Bukowski explained the incident to Harold Norse:
A bigwig interviewed me in a long dark room with a lamp down at

the end of a big table. Real Kafka-nazi stuff. I was told they didn’t
like my columns “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” I asked, “are we to pre-
sume that the postal officials are the new critics of literature?” “Uh,
no, we didn’t mean that.” Like hell. Then he told me, “if you had
stuck to poetry and poetry books you would have been all right, but
this . . . ” and he tapped the newspaper and my column, and left the
rest unspoken. You find all this hard to believe? I do too. Especially
since I have no politics. (Lilly: Norse, April 20, 1968)
According to the Charles Bukowski FBI Files, the four “Notes” con-
tributions produced as exhibits by the postal authorities were dated
December 8–14, 1967, December 29/January 4, 1968, and January
12–17, 1968, alongside a fourth undated installment, probably from
December 15–21, 1967. In the first “Notes” column, Bukowski
criticized the relevance given to Leroi Jones’s work in an Evergreen
Review issue, and he also mentioned in the story that he was not mar-
ried to the mother of his child, who “got ready to go to a communist
party meeting” (“Notes” 10), which seemed to particularly upset the
authorities; hence, the political comment in the letter to Norse. As a
matter of fact, Sounes claims that a spy was sent to “snoop around for
information” about Bukowski’s presumed political activities, but his
landlord “sent [the spy] away saying Bukowski ‘wasn’t no Commie’”
(Locked 90).
The second exhibit, the undated “Notes” installment, was the
infamous episode of sodomy, where “Hank” mistakenly performed
anal sex on his high-school friend, “Baldy.” In the third “Notes”
column, “Bukowski” recreated a sexual fantasy with a female admirer,
and in the fourth one he attacked the post office. The FBI had been
watching over Bukowski’s activities since the early 1940s, when he
had been erroneously accused of draft-dodging. The FBI File #140–
35097, declassified in 1998, reveals that FBI agents had found other
Bukowski contributions in little magazines such as Copkiller (1968),
Underground Digest (1968), or Mainstream (1963). An FBI agent duly
underlined the editorial comments stating that Bukowski’s four-letter
words had been censored in the latter periodical (Aposhian, FBI ). In
the late 1960s, the FBI was investigating many other underground
newspapers, such as Nola Express or Seed, and, in all probability, they
had warned the postal authorities about Bukowski’s apparently sub-

versive writing in Open City. He was summoned to the personnel
department for a second interview, but “the authorities made no
headway . . . and word got out that he had stood defiantly against the
authorities” (Cherkovski, Hank 192). In any case, even if in this par-
ticular occasion Bukowski came off with flying colors, it is evident
that success and popularity could have unwanted consequences.
The number of periodicals featuring Bukowski’s work experienced

a dramatic drop from 1967 to 1969 mainly because of his regular
contributions to Open City. After reaching a peak during the mimeo-
graph revolution in 1966 with 37 magazine appearances and 51 mag-
azine issue contributions, the total number of magazines dwindled
to 31 in 1967 and 18 in 1968, while the number of issues increased
to 73 in 1967 and 74 in 1968. Bukowski’s weekly contributions to
Open City from 1967 to 1969 explain the fact that he was only pub-
lished in 18 magazine titles in 1968, the second lowest total in the
decade, while the number of magazine issues was 74, the highest of
the 1960s. Bukowski clearly devoted his literary efforts to that under-
ground newspaper and submitted less material to the littles or other
underground periodicals. After Open City ’s demise in early 1969,
however, the situation reverted to the upward pattern that had taken
place during the early to mid-1960s: in 1969, his work appeared in 27
magazine titles and in 42 magazine issues; in 1970, the total number
of magazine titles was 26, and that of magazine issues, 59; in 1971,
the magazine title figure increased to 43, and the magazine issues to
71. It is evident that the “minor fame” (Blunden 15) or the interna-
tional renown caused by his “Notes” columns in Open City did not
deter him from bombarding in large quantities both the little maga-
zines and the underground press newspapers in the early 1970s.
While Evergreen Review, Open City, and the Los Angeles Free
Press could be considered his most relevant periodical appearances in
1967, the following year his work was featured in Copkiller, edited by
Darlene Fife and Robert Head, who, like John Bryan, unflaggingly
printed Bukowski’s “Notes” columns as well as his poems and let-
ters in 81 issues of their underground newspaper, Nola Express, from
August 1969 to January 1974. He was also published in Ghost-Dance
in 1968, edited by Hugh Fox, who completed the first lengthy bio-
bibliography devoted to Bukowski’s work in 1969. Hale Chatfield,
who had penned the brief introduction to the poem published in
the controversial issue of Dare in 1966, printed his poems in The
Hiram Poetry Review in 1968. Three of the poems that Bukowski
had submitted to Gerard Malanga in 1962 appeared in Intransit, fea-

turing Andy Warhol’s art on the front cover. Underground periodi-
cals such as the National Underground Review, Underground Digest,
and Open City published his prose, while Outcast, edited by Veryl
and Jean Rosenbaum, who compiled a volume of Bukowski corre-
spondence that was eventually aborted in the mid-1960s, d. a. levy’s
tabloid The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle, and The Willie
stressed the value of his poetry in their mimeographed pages.
Satyrday, an underground newspaper edited by Gerard Melling
in Toronto in 1968, was a significant periodical in Bukowski’s career
as it was one of the first to reprint his “Notes” columns via the
Underground Press Syndicate (UPS), an organization that allowed
UPS-affiliated newspapers to freely reprint previously published/
copyrighted material. Melling, who had discovered Bukowski’s work
in Down Here, the little magazine that had run a special section of the
Bukowski/McNamara letters in 1966, summed it up thus: “Satyrday
magazine was part of the UPS . . . However, Satyrday was unique in
being the first (and only!) magazine to drop out of the Syndicate, but
I had a deal with John Bryan . . . that I could re-print Bukowski from
his organ” (“Satyrday”). Oddly enough, Melling decided to rerun
the columns printed in Open City, a newspaper imbued with counter-
culture values, because, like Bukowski, he adamantly condemned the
Flower Power ideology of the period: “I published him because I con-
sidered him an important antidote to the occasional hippy-drippyness
that pervaded so much of the literature of the time” (ibid.)
Melling reprinted five columns in Satyrday in 1968, including the
infamous installment where Bukowski harshly criticized Leroi Jones.
That Bukowski’s columns were freely distributed in an underground
Canadian newspaper, and later in other UPS-affiliated outfits in the
United States, England, and the Netherlands, attests to his increasing
popularity in the alternative publishing circles. As Melling himself
eloquently concluded: “Bukowski loomed large in the underground
literary scene in the sixties” (“Satyrday”). David Evanier, who pub-
lished Bukowski in Event in the early 1970s, corroborated this view
by contending that Bukowski was the one author who stood out from
“that melange of comic strips, ads for massage parlors, instructions
on handling marijuana, and odes to Timothy Leary and Charles
Manson” that constituted the underground press scene (54).
Apart from the little magazine and underground press appear-
ances, two further small press publications came out in 1968: At
Terror Street and Agony Way, the first book to be released by Black
Sparrow Press, and Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story
Window, a chapbook published under the Poetry X/Change imprint.

In unmistakable bukowskian tradition, both books had endured a
painfully long gestation, similar to that of Flower, Fist in 1960, Cold
Dogs in 1965, and several cancelled projects in the early to mid-1960s.
As in the case of many other early Bukowski publications, the gen-
esis of At Terror Street might be misleading. Biographers claim that
the poems were originally read aloud by Bukowski and tape-recorded
by John Thomas in December 1967, and “afterwards [Bukowski]
left the poems behind and forgot about them and they got thrown
away” (Miles, C. Bukowski 154). However, Thomas considered that
the poems were good enough for publication and, since Bukowski had
no copies of them, he selflessly transcribed them off the recorded tapes
with his consent; Bukowski subsequently showed the recovered poems
to John Martin, who was so elated that he decided to publish them.
While Cherkovski recounted this episode in a similar fashion,
Bukowski’s version was somewhat different. As he explained to Carl
Weissner in September 1967, “some poems which got lost and which
Thomas recorded, saved on tape before I ever knew him . . . He put
the poems on one night when I was over there and said I had writ-
ten them, and surely enough I had. So, some lost babies back. Book
to be called At Terror Street and Agony Way ” (Davidson, September
26, 1967). Bukowski had given John Bryan a large group of poems
in 1962, and Bryan had published some of them in both Renaissance
and Notes from Underground, but the bulk of them had not been
returned to Bukowski. John Thomas, who had selected the Bukowski
poems printed in Notes from Underground and who had interviewed
Bukowski for the Los Angeles Free Press as well, tape-recorded those
poems before they became friends in the mid-1960s. Therefore, many
of the poems that were eventually published in At Terror Street were
old, previously rejected pieces that Thomas—and not Bukowski—had
saved on tape. Moreover, Thomas even “determined line-breaks for
him” when he transcribed them off the recordings (P. Long 70).
Be that as it may, the book was released in May 1968, and two
weeks later Bukowski “received a royalty cheque from Martin for
$460” (Miles, C. Bukowski 155), and the 747 copies of the first and
only edition were sold out in barely two months. While Bukowski was
delighted to learn that his first Black Sparrow Press book had enjoyed
such an eager reception, the prospect of earning well-deserved royal-
ties with Martin had probably prompted him to cancel the project he
had been planning with the Webbs since Crucifix had appeared in
1965. As biographer Aubrey Malone put it, “Black Sparrow Press was
his first taste of ‘real’ money and he had to go with that” (74). Indeed,
Bukowski treasured financial incentives, and they were instrumental

in persuading him to resign from his job at the post office to under-
take his career as a full-time professional writer.
With the exception of At Terror Street, all the Bukowski books
published by Black Sparrow Press remained in print while the com-
pany operated. According to Martin, “[A]lmost all the poems in
Terror Street were later collected in Burning in Water (1974) and
Roominghouse Madrigals (1988). I didn’t reprint a few poems from
Terror Street that I thought later were not quite up to par” (“bib-
lio and mags”). That most of the poems selected for the book had
already been rejected by other editors might account for Martin’s ret-
rospective assessment. Thus, At Terror Street could be seen as the
black sheep of Bukowski’s literary production. Furthermore, probably
unbeknownst to most readers, Graham Mackintosh, who designed
that volume, “included [a] blind-embossed letter (an actual letter
Hank wrote to Michael Forrest) in the front, and blind embossed of
some Buk drawings on later pages” (J. Martin, “biblio and mags”),
further turning At Terror Street into a rara avis in the Bukowski
canon.
The second small press publication brought out in 1968, Poems
Written Before, had been planned by Jan Kepley and Mel Buffington,
editors of the little magazine Blitz , as early as May 1965. As per cus-
tom, Bukowski had submitted to them a large batch of poems in early
1965, and Kepley and Buffington were so impressed by the material
that they not only printed seven of his poems in the first three Blitz
issues (1965–1966), but they also persuaded him to put out a chap-
book of his poetry. The book was even advertised in Blitz #1 and in
the Wormwood Review #18 as being published in late 1965 by Mad
Virgin Press. In a July 1965 letter to Purdy, Bukowski corroborated
this: “Mad Virgin Press to bring out some poems of mine—mostly
those Webb didn’t want for Crucifix and I didn’t feel like throwing
away—to be called Poems Written Before Leaping Out of an 8 Story
Window” (The B./Purdy Letters 89). Interestingly, as in the case of
At Terror Street, the poems selected for the chapbook had been previ-
ously rejected by other editors.
Nevertheless, in yet another instance of editorial carelessness, the
book suffered the fate of oblivion. Although Kepley and Buffington
abandoned the project, a friend of theirs, Charles Potts, was so taken
by “The Hairy Hairy Fist, and Love Will Die,” a Bukowski poem pub-
lished in Grande Ronde Review, a mimeo edited by Ben L. Hiatt in
Oregon, that he decided to bring back to life the discarded chapbook
and release it with the help of yet another editor, Darrell Kerr, under
their Poetry X/Change imprint. Kerr had eagerly corresponded with

Bukowski in 1967, and he was such a staunch supporter of his out-
put that that he had convinced David Laidig, editor of The Flash of
Pasadena, to reprint Bukowski’s essay “A Rambling Essay” in his little
magazine.
With Kerr’s enthusiastic assistance, Potts brought out the chap-
book in the summer of 1968. He recalled its inception quite vividly:
“[I] rescue[d] it from Jan Kepley . . . It was already put together. Kerr
printed it; I paid for the paper and the cover. The reason I did it is for
the poem, ‘The Hairy Hairy Fist and Love Will Die.’ This is a great
poem. As far as I know, the best one he ever wrote” (“Charles Potts
/ Bukowski”). Curiously enough, while the poem was reprinted the
following year in A Bukowski Sampler, and Potts published it again in
his little magazine Litmus in 1971 as well as in the anthology Pacific
Northwestern Spiritual Poetry in 1988, it has not been collected to
date. A second printing of Poems Written Before appeared in 1975,
including “a dozen letters Bukowski wrote to me during the first
time of the printing, back in ‘68” (Potts, “How I Came” 97), which
once and for all confirms how relevant Bukowski’s correspondence
was to most editors, who repeatedly reproduced his letters in their
publications.
C H A P T E R 4
Stealing the Limelight
The year 1969 was pivotal in Bukowski’s career, arguably the most
crucial of the decade, and an unquestionable turning point in his
life. The four main books released that year, Notes of a Dirty Old
Man, Penguin Modern Poets, The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses
Over the Hills, and A Bukowski Sampler, could be considered the
culmination of all his previously published material in little maga-
zines and underground newspapers. Bukowski’s stubbornness to be
acknowledged for his literary efforts in the alternative publishing
scene was finally rewarded on an international scale. The first lengthy
scholarly and bibliographic studies of Bukowski’s work, Hugh Fox’s
Charles Bukowski: A Critical and Bibliographical Study, and Sanford
Dorbin’s A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski, provided further recog-
nition. Institutional acceptance came about late in 1969, when UCSB
acquired the first installment of his material for their archives. His
perennially prolific output was not disrupted by his newfound popu-
larity and success; quite the opposite, he bombarded the littles and
underground papers with renewed energy and pertinacity. Foreign
periodicals were not alien to his increasing fame, and his poetry and
fiction were promoted in Europe and India.
Encouraged by the eager reception of his most controversial col-
umns published in Open City from 1967 to early 1969, Bukowski
began to write dozens of so-called dirty stories and submit them to
erotic magazines or “sex papers.” He also decided to dabble again
with editing and, with the staunch support of his biographer-to-be,
Neeli Cherkovski, two issues of Laugh Literary and Man the Humping
Guns were released in 1969. In December, distressed by the prospect
of being dismissed from his job at the post office for excessive absen-
teeism, he gave two public poetry readings for the first time ever as a
means of extra income. During the last week of the year, after John
Martin verbally committed himself to sending Bukowski a monthly
one hundred dollar check for life, whether he wrote or not, Bukowski
finally handed in his resignation at the post office and became a full-
time professional writer.
Notes of a Dirty Old Man was published on January 24, 1969,
by Essex House, a North Hollywood press specializing in porno-
graphic books. John Bryan acted as Bukowski’s literary agent and
first offered the book to Donald Allen, of Grove Press, who had
expressed an interest in releasing it, although he eventually decided
against it. The subsequent deal with Essex House was most profit-
able for Bukowski as he received a thousand-dollar advance, a con-
siderable sum for him at the time, and 28,000 copies were printed, a
figure that Bukowski probably considered astronomical since most of
his previous chapbooks and books did not exceed a thousand copies.
Bukowski was still submitting the “Notes” installments to Open City
when the book came out; hence, the 40 columns that were finally
used by Essex House were selected from the first 70 Open City issues.
Most of the remaining columns would later appear in City Lights’
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary
Madness (1972), and a single column was collected by Black Sparrow
Press in Hot Water Music (1983). City Lights was definitely keener
on Bukowski’s unvarnished, deliberately provocative material as evi-
denced by their reprinting of Notes of a Dirty Old Man in 1973 after
the Essex House edition went out of print.
Bukowski did not conceal his delight, and in an autobiographi-
cal essay written in 1970, he explained that “the paper [Open City]
folded . . . but I had some luck—Essex House picked up the columns
from Open City and came out with a paperback Notes of a Dirty
Old Man. The work that I had done as a joy and almost for noth-
ing was coming back in hard coin” (“Dirty” 81). However, there
were further reasons to rejoice since the book turned out to be both
profitable and yet another stepping stone to success. It received the
1969 “Wormwood Award” given by the little magazine Wormwood
Review and, most importantly, it became an instant classic in the
underground scene. The 28,000 copies sold out in a relatively short
period of time, and nowadays mint copies are actively sought by col-
lectors. Clearly, John Bryan’s Open City played an essential role in
turning Bukowski into a hugely popular author in the late 1960s.
Penguin Modern Poets 13 was released in the spring of 1969 by
Penguin Books in England, but in true bukowskian tradition, the
project had sprung into existence several years earlier. Poet Harold
Norse, who was living in Europe at the time, persuaded Penguin Books
editor Nikos Stangos to publish a joint volume of poetry by Philip
Lamantia, Bukowski, and Norse, a colorful threesome. Bukowski and
STEALING THE LIMELIGHT 155
Norse corresponded feverishly during the mid- to late 1960s, and

Bukowski mentioned the book as early as October 1965 in a letter
to Norse. During the ensuing years, Bukowski candidly expressed his
gratitude to Norse for having considered him for that volume, even
remarking that he saw the Penguin project as a miracle: “[W]e don’t
want to lose our heads but I think we have a little luck and grace com-
ing to us” (Lilly: Norse, September 1967).
When the book was finally published in 1969, shortly after Notes of
a Dirty Old Man, “[Bukowski] emerged full blown from mimeo-mag,
small-press fame to genuine cult hero” (Christy). While Bukowski
was probably aware of the international fame and prestige brought
about by the Penguin release, he was not particularly proud of the
poems selected by both Norse and Stangos from his earlier milestone
publications, It Catches and Crucifix, labeling them as “conserva-
tive” (“Letter to Liddy” 45) or “too classical” in an inscribed copy
to Gerard Malanga. Nevertheless, Bukowski would always publicly
acknowledge his indebtedness to Norse. For instance, Bukowski
invited Norse to act as “contributing editor” to the second issue of
Laugh Literary, coedited by Bukowski and Cherkovski.
Encouraged by the success of Notes of a Dirty Old Man and the
international reputation of the Penguin volume, Bukowski was reso-
lute enough to plunge into his third experience as editor of a little
magazine. The project had been conceived by a third party in the
summer of 1968, when Bukowski was ruthlessly rejecting most of
the submissions received for the second Renaissance issue, the one
that proved to be ill-fated for John Bryan’s underground newspaper.
As Bukowski explained in his correspondence, a “rich backer,” appar-
ently an old high-school friend, wanted to bring out a large-circu-
lation little magazine and he chose Bukowski as the ideal editor for
such a venture. Reputedly, Bukowski’s friend devised a hundred-page
magazine, featuring a hundred single page poems, with a print run of
5,000 copies for the inaugural issue. A flyer calling for submissions
was issued in 1969 when the magazine was yet unnamed.
In his correspondence with Carl Weissner, Bukowski mentioned
soliciting material for the magazine as early as October 1968, but
plans were disrupted in early 1969 when the “rich backer turned
out not rich but a runner from creditors . . . but [I] liked the poems
so much . . . had to go ahead and put the mag out” (Screams 345).
The magazine was first titled The Contemporary Review: A Non-Snob
Compilation of Active Creativity Now, and then Laugh Literary and
Man the Fucking Guns, his coeditor having persuaded Bukowski to
come up with a more convincing name. The first issue was launched
in May 1969, bearing an arresting manifesto on the front cover as

well as the final title: “In disgust with Poetry Chicago, with the
dull dumpling pattycake safe Creeleys, Olsons, Dickeys, Merwins,
Nemerovs and Merediths—this is issue # one volume one of Laugh
Literary and Man the Humping Guns ” (emphasis in the original).
The withdrawal of financial support limited the original aspira-
tions of a large circulation periodical to the more realistic features
of a true little magazine, as Bukowski remarked to James Liddy:
“Laugh Literary came out on a very limited budget—$80 for 500
copies” (“Letter to Liddy” 45). In all likelihood, the cult hero status
achieved after the release of Notes of a Dirty Old Man contributed to
the fact that the magazine was sold out by late 1969 and it was soon
listed in dealers’ catalogues as a collector’s item. The second issue was
published later that year, with Harold Norse and Steve Richmond
acting as contributing editors, and the final one appeared in 1971.
Bukowski’s poems, as well as several of his letters, were reproduced
in the three issues; a short story titled “The Time I Knocked Out
Ernest Hemingway and Was Discovered as a New Literary Giant” was
printed in the last issue, and it was later collected as “Class” in the
Black Sparrow Press collection South of No North (1973).
Laugh Literary was, after Harlequin and Renaissance, the third
periodical where Bukowski exercised his editorial powers. Like the
manifesto used on the front cover of the first issue, it was the per-
fect chance to attack Creeley, Nemerov, and the Black Mountaineers.
Bukowski and Cherkovski were callous in their rejections and, in char-
acteristically childlike behavior, they “began defacing manuscripts
[and] scrawling insults . . . [They] poured beer over poems . . . or dipped
them in egg, before mailing the rejected work back to the authors”
(Sounes, Locked 98). Indeed, Bukowski could be boorish and mean in
his rejections, as in a letter to Carol Bergé written before the first issue
came out: “Ah, Carol, these are not very good . . . What the fuck are
you giving me? . . . 19th century French-literary Romanticism. What
the fuck?” (Olin, February 25, 1969). Bukowski was so dissatisfied
with that project that he even criticized his coeditor involvement in
the periodical shortly after it was discontinued: “[R]e laugh lit., it’s
dead. Neeli never did much work on the thing—my end was reading
manus. His end was to fill orders. He fucked up. I still get letters
from libraries and subscribers to the fact that they never rec. a copy,”
he explained to one of the acting editors in rather disgruntled terms
(Richmond, “Unpublished” November 2, 1971).
Nevertheless, critics and biographers alike failed to mention that
Bukowski did receive submissions to his liking and that he openly
admitted as much. For instance, after reading a poem by Jerome

Rothenberg, which had to be returned because it did not meet the
one-page length criterion, Bukowski acknowledged that it was a
“good poem . . . you won’t have trouble unloading it” (Mandeville,
February 17, 1969). Rothenberg submitted further work to Bukowski,
who accepted it almost too enthusiastically, while stressing that he had
already received first-rate material from several authors: “Again, much
thanks for ‘Poland / 1931.’ it is so very difficult to find good writ-
ing . . . so ‘Poland’ helps much, and a recent submission by Stephan
Stepanchev. also good stuff by Weidman, Sinclair Beiles, Hal Norse,
John Thomas and Belart” (Mandeville, February 24, 1969).
In any case, the magazine could not be considered an extremely
successful endeavor. That they scathingly rejected so many authors
and that acceptances were infrequent, compelling Bukowski and
Cherkovski to publish several poems under pseudonyms, might
account for the one subscriber the magazine had. While Bukowski
claimed being “very proud of him” (Ciotti 18), their editorial maneu-
vers were not satisfactory enough: “[He] bitched about something we
had printed, so we sent him back his money and told him to get lost”
(Reach 251). The reckless decisions made while coediting Harlequin
with Barbara Fry in the 1950s, the inclusion of controversial mate-
rial in Renaissance in 1968, which caused the subsequent suspen-
sion of Open City, and the unprofitable, exhausting undertaking of
Laugh Literary in the late 1960s and early 1970s, probably convinced
Bukowski that he was not skilled enough to embark on those liter-
ary enterprises since he never edited another little magazine in his
career—although he did coedit the Anthology of L.A. Poets, a one-
shot project undertaken together with Paul Vangelisti and Neeli
Cherkovski in 1972.
After the publication of Notes of a Dirty Old Man in January
and the Penguin Modern Poets book in the spring of 1969, a third
volume was printed in July, further acknowledging the relevance
of Bukowski’s work. Similar to the Essex House and the Penguin
releases, A Bukowski Sampler collected previously available material,
most notably poetry, although there was an excerpt from his “Notes”
installments. In addition, “A Rambling Essay” was prominently dis-
played as the opening piece of the collection—subsequent editions
featured three chapters from the unfinished novel The Way the Dead
Love. Assembled by Douglas Blazek, one of Bukowski’s most ardent
supporters during the mimeograph revolution, when he published his
prose, poetry, letters, and drawings in all eight issues of Olé, A Bukowski
Sampler also included several laudatory pieces by Bukowski’s friends
Darrell Kerr, William Wantling, Al Purdy, and Steve Richmond,

as well as by experts on the little magazine scene such as Richard
Mangelsdorff and Walter Lowenfels. Except for Wantling and Purdy,
who had nonetheless reviewed his work in Canadian magazines, the
other editors had already printed Bukowski’s material in their own
publications.
A critical study and a bibliography would further highlight the
indisputable popularity achieved by Bukowski by the late 1960s.
Charles Bukowski: A Critical and Bibliographical Study, by Hugh Fox,
who also promoted Bukowski’s poetry in his little magazine Ghost-
Dance, was the first study to tackle Bukowski’s work to date, featur-
ing a valuable, but rather disjointed, bibliographical checklist at the
end of the volume. Bukowski vehemently disapproved of Fox’s book;
as early as July 1969, he confided to Carl Weissner that he found the
critical study too academic and that Fox “called the worst poems the
best ones, the best ones the worst” (Screams 349). In 1989, he did
not grant permission for the book to be reprinted with excerpts from
his work, and in 1993 Bukowski further accused Fox of being “a
tiresome . . . windy . . . fake” (Reach 285). On the other hand, Sanford
Dorbin’s A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski was met with Bukowski’s
enthusiastic approval. Shortly after the bibliography was published
in December 1969, Bukowski remarked that “I look at the biblio
and wonder how you ever did it without going triple apeshit. People
thumb through that baby with wonder” (Dorbin, “Unpublished”
February 6, 1970). Unlike Fox’s study, Dorbin provided no assess-
ment of the material at hand, which might account for Bukowski’s
uncharacteristically warm comments.
Bukowski’s urge to write was not disrupted by the minor success,
fame, and recognition brought about by Notes of a Dirty Old Man,
the Penguin volume, A Bukowski Sampler, or the critical studies and
bibliographies. He unceasingly submitted his poetry and fiction to
several little magazines in 1969, appearing in Evergreen Review,
Intrepid, The Outsider, the Wormwood Review, Vagabond, and Ghost-
Dance. Amper&and, coedited by T. L. Kryss, printed one of his
poems in true mimeograph tradition. Later that year, Kryss pub-
lished a short story/prose poem titled “The Hollywood Swimming
Pool Life” in Panama Gold, yet another mimeo production. Kryss
was so taken by Bukowski’s work that he ran several of his poems in
Runcible Spoon (1970) and in The Allegheny Star Route (1975), both
mimeographed periodicals. Bukowski’s poetry was also earnestly pro-
moted in alternative European publications such as Acid or Silver
Screen, lengthy bilingual anthologies, or Merkur, a literary magazine,
paving the way for the subsequent popularity in Germany in the wake
of Weissner translations as well as for his bursting onto the erotic
literature scene via soft-core magazines such as Spontan (1970) or
Twen (1971). Further afield, in 1969 Pradip Choudhuri printed a
Bukowski poem in ppHOO, a little magazine inexpensively produced
in Calcutta, India, and Choudhuri would publish him again ten years
later in Swakal.
Bukowski’s prose was also featured in underground newspapers in
1969, such as Open City, Berkeley Tribe, and Nola Express. While Nola
Express would become one of the most significant literary outlets for
Bukowski during the early 1970s, his first contribution to the news-
paper dates back to August 1969. Nola Express editors, Darlene Fife
and Robert Head, had previously published Bukowski’s poetry in the
controversial little magazine Copkiller (1968), one of the periodicals
recorded in the Bukowski FBI files as part of an attempt to document
his presumed association with communists or other radical, anties-
tablishment groups. Bukowski’s prose eventually became the main
attraction of the newspaper. Just as with Open City, many readers
bought Nola Express for Bukowski’s columns. Fife and Head soon
became aware of Bukowski’s popular status, and they prominently
displayed his short stories and the “Notes” installments. As Patrick
Kelly underlined, “[N]ot only did Bukowski get two pages near or at
the center of the literary-oriented newspaper, but he also got twenty
dollars per story as well” (ii). From August 1969 to January 1974, Fife
and Head published Bukowski’s prose, poetry, artwork, and corre-
spondence in 81 issues. Passionate discussions and merciless criticism
by readers about Bukowski’s ostensibly uncalled-for obscene approach
to literature were common in the Letters section of the newspaper.
The continued exposure granted by the newspaper as well as its rela-
tively large circulation, reaching 11,000 copies per issue by July 1970,
helped consolidate Bukowski’s ever-growing popularity in the alter-
native literary scene.
Bukowski enjoyed a mutually rewarding love/hate relationship
with some of the editors who published his work in the 1950s and
1960s. E. V. Griffith, who championed Bukowski’s poetry as early
as 1958 in Hearse and then proceeded to publish his first chap-
book in 1960, suspended Hearse in 1961. In 1969 Griffith found
a group of poems that Bukowski had submitted in the early 1960s
to Gallows, a little magazine run by Griffith’s brother. The poems
had not been printed and, as usual, they had not been sent back to
Bukowski. Griffith asked Bukowski if one of the poems from that
unreturned batch, “The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the
Hills,” remained unpublished since reading it made him “itch to start

publishing Hearse again” (140). The poem was indeed available for
publication and, thus, Hearse was reborn in August 1969. The find-
ing of that apparently lost poem, which, incidentally, became the
title of the second Bukowski book published by Black Sparrow Press,
signaled the renewal of their literary relationship since Griffith pub-
lished Bukowski’s poetry in Hearse and Poetry Now throughout the
1970s and 1980s.
Interestingly, Bukowski’s work also appeared in Stony Brook or
Caterpillar, periodicals that were fundamentally devoted to publish-
ing Black Mountaineers and other authors Bukowski condemned on
the front cover of Laugh Literary, such as Charles Olson or Robert
Creeley, whose books, by a strange coincidence, were being con-
currently released by Black Sparrow Press. Caterpillar, edited by
Clayton Eshleman, a Deep Image poet like David Antin and Jerome
Rothenberg, constituted an opprobrious case of editorial mismanage-
ment. As Eshleman admitted, “I don’t care for [Bukowski’s] work at all,
and only put [his] poem in Caterpillar because our mutual publisher,
John Martin at Black Sparrow, leaned on me” (Eshleman). Dorbin,
who was corresponding frequently with both Martin and Bukowski
at the time, corroborated Eshleman’s contention: “Why did Eshleman
publish Bukowski, about whom he hated everything—his success, his
disdain for just exactly the pretentiousness & hieratic hoo-hah of the
Black Mountaineers & ilk? . . . Because Martin told him to. Simple as
that” (Dorbin, “Buk”). The poem that Martin compelled Eshleman
to print in Caterpillar, “What a Man I Was,” had been previously
published in Gallows in 1959. Barely two months after its appearance
in Caterpillar, it was chosen as the opening piece for Bukowski’s The
Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills, a seminal volume in
his career. Curiously enough, even though Sheri Martinelli praised the
poem as a “howler” and a “classic” (Beerspit 256), Bukowski found it
unsatisfactory and full of clichés.
Going Porn
Undoubtedly goaded by the eager reception of the sex-oriented
“Notes” columns published in Open City, National Underground
Review, and Nola Express, Bukowski began to explore that field
with uncommon zest in 1969, submitting sexually explicit stories
to several underground newspapers. Some of them were overtly and
unabashedly pornographic; the first “Notes” installment published in
the New York Review of Sex and Politics in August 1969 began thus:
“Barney got her in the ass while she sucked me off” (“Notes” 18).
The same column was almost simultaneously printed in Berkeley Tribe
and Nola Express that same month, and it also appeared, with sub-
stantial changes, in the erotic tabloid Candid Press in late 1970. The
New York Review of Sex and Politics featured two more “Notes” sto-
ries in 1969, both with strong sexual content and gruesome scenes.
While Black Sparrow Press seemed utterly uninterested in this graphic
material, City Lights correctly surmised that these columns enjoyed
a considerable readership, as the several periodical appearances bear
out, and they collected the three “Notes” stories in Erections.
Bukowski was not particularly interested in the underground
press ideology. Aside from satisfying in part his hunger for exposure,
financial motivations might account for his regular presence in several
underground periodicals. While payment was not substantial for the
“Notes” columns printed in Open City, Nola Express, and the New
York Review of Sex and Politics —10, 20, and 25 dollars per install-
ment, respectively—it amounted to much more than the customary
contributor’s copies Bukowski used to receive from the little maga-
zines in lieu of payment. Furthermore, the same column could yield
considerable profit since it appeared, with minor variations, in differ-
ent newspapers. Likewise, erotic magazines such as Fling reprinted
several “Notes” columns in 1970 and 1971, netting Bukowski more
than 60 dollars per reprint. He recalled such a practice in a late short
story: “I’d get $375 for a suck-fuck story and then they’d write and
ask me if they could republish same in some throwaway rag for $75 or
$50, and I’d say fine, go ahead” (“The Ladies Man” 94). Not surpris-
ingly, Bukowski had submitted, as early as April 1969, several short
stories to large-circulation sex-oriented periodicals such as Evergreen
Review or Playboy : the infamous “The Birth, Life, and Death of an
Underground Newspaper” was published in the September 1969
issue of Evergreen Review, while Playboy rejected “The Night Nobody
Believed I Was Allen Ginsberg,” which was printed in Berkeley Tribe
in September 1969 as well, and eventually collected in Portions from
a Wine-Stained Notebook (2008).
Undeterred by the Playboy rejection, Bukowski submitted yet
another graphic short story to that erotic outfit in early 1970: “Sent
[‘Christ with Barbecue Sauce’] to Playboy. a real wild humming bru-
tal story. gave me hope that the touch is not gone. But Playboy won’t
take it. They care more for the leisurely sophisticated style—a la New
Yorker ” (Dorbin, “Unpublished” August 8, 1970). Indeed, Playboy
did not accept the short story, although Candid Press brought it
out in December 1970 under the rather uninspiring title of “One,
With . . . Fantasy,” and it was collected four decades later by City Lights
in Absence of the Hero (2010). As an interesting coda, Playboy, as if try-
ing to finally acknowledge Bukowski’s stature as a relevant contempo-
rary author, ran one of his essays in the March 2010 issue. Ironically
enough, the essay, penned in 1971 as “The House of Horrors,” was
anything but a “brutal story,” and it could easily fall into the stylistic
category Bukowski complained about in 1970.
In any case, Bukowski soon realized that the girlie or skin maga-
zines were an ideal outlet for his most sexually explicit material, and,
more importantly, the considerable amounts paid per short story were
an added bonus not to be missed. For example, “The Fiend” and “The
Copulating Mermaid of Venice, California,” two controversial short
stories written in the summer of 1969, appeared in Adam (February
1970) and Knight (January 1970), respectively. Bukowski explained to
Weissner that he had completed the latter in 45 minutes and that “some
sex mag says it’s worth $150 to me upon publication” (Screams 351).
His cachet doubled in record time: he received a 275-dollar check for
“The Poor Fish,” printed in the July 1970 issue of Adam, and later
incorporated, with minor revisions, into Post Office. Bukowski spiritedly
exploited this new arena; not only did he submit his fiction to several
erotic periodicals in 1970, but, fully aware of the successful “Notes”
installments published in Open City and other underground newspa-
pers, he also created new columns specifically for those girlie maga-
zines. At least four “More Notes of a Dirty Old Man” stories, first titled
“Bukowski Bitches,” came out in the pornographic tabloid Candid Press
in 1970, and five “Hairy Fist Tales” installments in Fling in 1971.
Bukowski’s eager involvement in the erotic and pornographic peri-
odicals notwithstanding, the general consensus was that most of those
short stories were literarily unaccomplished, “far less crafted than the
work Black Sparrow Press published” (Sounes, Locked 147). Bukowski
himself admitted as much in 1970, stating that, for instance, the fic-
tion submitted to Candid Press was a “hack job,” and, in an undated
letter to John Martin, he acknowledged it was “not very good stuff”
(Robson 43; Doheny). In the same letter to Martin, Bukowski, in an
attempt to justify the poor nature of those columns, described Candid
Press as “a rather lousy newspaper,” as if it did not deserve his first-rate
material. However, it did not escape his attention that the tabloid had
a relatively large readership; as Bill Sloan noted, “[Candid Press] was a
strident, smirking strumpet of a paper . . . Unlike most other tabloids,
CP had a fairly large mail-out subscription list—obviously because
many devoted readers wouldn’t have been caught dead picking up a

copy of it in a public place” (73–74). In all likelihood, to Bukowski
these were minor considerations overshadowed by the potential expo-
sure he so desperately longed for, which, combined with the financial
reward provided by the highest bidders in the erotic publishing scene,
resulted in the fact that he repeatedly and mockingly defined himself
as a “literary hustler” in the early 1970s.
While the short stories submitted to the girlie magazines had an
evidently strong sexual content, Bukowski believed that sex was not
the driving force behind the prose pieces published in the “sex mags,”
as he labeled those erotic outfits in several metaliterary instances.
Indeed, in a 1975 interview he stressed that his material was not
strictly sexual: “I wrote sex stories for the sex magazines, who paid
very well at the time . . . I put sex in it but I would put a story around
it, to please myself . . . Even though they have sex, you will find sex
is not the story” (Chénetier 23). Furthermore, in yet another inter-
view from 1975, Bukowski remarked that his short stories were not
“dirty,” despite having defined them likewise in the short story “The
Silver Christ of Santa Fe” and being popularly known as the “Dirty
Old Man” of the underground scene: “A dirty story is a very dull
story. If you ever try to read one, you know, ‘the guy took out his
throbbing cock; it was eight inches long, and she bent her lips . . . ’
This is a dirty story, and it’s boring. So I wouldn’t say I write dirty
stories” (Howard 5). In any case, whether some of his short stories
were purely “dirty” or not, Bukowski acknowledged that the erotic
periodicals were a most enticing arena to explore: “I found the porno
journals to be a great outlet: you could say anything you wanted, and
the more direct, the better. Simplicity and freedom at last, between
the slick photos of beaver shots,” he wryly concluded in the early
1990s (“Basic” 9).
Ironically enough, despite the presumed freedom enjoyed by
Bukowski, the editors of the “sex mags” occasionally rejected his
work on the most absurd grounds, as he comically recounted in the
poem “Reject,” where the publisher of an erotic magazine is quoted
as saying:
This is well-written but disgusting

because to infer that a man your age
had sex with 5 women in 3 days
is simply the most infantile act of
day-dreaming (night-dreaming?) that I
have ever fallen across. (14)
In “My Worst Rejection Slip,” a poem about the same episode, the
editor went on to say that “the reader will / never believe” that story,
although “Bukowski” found it “perfectly accurate” (“My Worst”).
The short story had not been accepted because it appeared to be sexu-
ally unfeasible, as Bukowski underscored in a 1987 interview: “What
I used to do was write a good story and throw in some goddamn
sex. It worked. I only got one rejected—it had too much sex! They
draw a fine line” (Ebert 1). Humorous tone aside, girlie magazines
accepted both his sexual stories as well as his grossest, crudest fiction,
such as “The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, California,” a story
about necrophilia, or “The Fiend,” a brutal, unvarnished account of
pedophilia—“The Hog” remains a noteworthy exception; penned
in 1982, it was systematically rejected by the editors of adult peri-
odicals such as High Times, Oui, Hustler, and the German editions
of Penthouse and Playboy, where his fiction was otherwise staunchly
championed. The fact that the main character of the story, a wealthy
man who fears impotence, forces a young prostitute to eat the penis of
a dying hog at gunpoint while screaming at her “you’ll either swallow
a bullet or you’ll swallow that cock” (10) so he can ultimately climax,
seemed particularly revolting to those editors. As the Hustler fiction
editor wrote in the rejection note, “[Y]ou and your work are liked
and highly respected here . . . but the subject matter is just too strong
for us to handle . . . it’s the bestiality and also its violent result that we
don’t feel we can accept” (Huntington, May 18, 1982). Not surpris-
ingly, the short story has not been published to date.
Much like the poem printed in Dare in 1966 and the “Notes”
columns, which came out in Open City in the late 1960s, recognition
and success could also have unpleasant, although not always unfore-
seeable, consequences. “The Fiend,” a short story mentioned as early
as August 1969 in a letter to Carl Weissner, would haunt Bukowski
for years. First published in Adam in February 1970, it was later col-
lected in Erections. “The Fiend” graphically described how Martin
Blanchard, who was 45 and “had married twice, divorced twice,
shacked up many times,” abused a “little girl” (46–47). According to
Sounes, it was one of the most “shocking [and] accomplished” short
stories Bukowski submitted to the erotic magazines, even claiming
that it was “the most extreme piece Bukowski ever wrote” (Locked
147–48). Miles contended that the fact that it was written in the first
person “caused a good deal of controversy” (C. Bukowski 206). “The
Fiend,” however, was written in the third person, and it only became
popular after it was reprinted in the November 1976 issue of Hustler,
followed by a lengthy interview with Bukowski, mostly focused on
the short story and the author’s stance regarding pedophilia, in the
next issue.
In the interview, Bukowski did not overtly condemn the main
character’s behavior; rather, he stated that he was simply impersonat-
ing the pedophile: “I’m not trying to justify rape and murder. I’m
trying to get inside the rapist’s or the murderer’s mind” (David 41).
Almost a decade later, Bukowski maintained a similar view, stressing
his role as an observer of human nature: “I wrote a short story from
the viewpoint of a rapist who raped a little girl. So people accused
me. I was interviewed. They’d say, ‘You like to rape little girls?’ I said,
‘Of course not. I’m photographing life,’” he argued in an interview
conducted by actor Sean Penn for Interview (Penn 95). Interestingly,
both Miles and Sounes failed to mention that, although the contro-
versy took place in the mid-1970s, “The Fiend” had been written in
the summer of 1969, when Bukowski submitted several similarly out-
rageous prose pieces, such as “The Copulating Mermaid of Venice,
California,” or “Christ with Barbecue Sauce,” to Adam, Knight,
Fling, Playboy, and other erotic periodicals.
“The Fiend” was not the last time Bukowski wrote about pedo-
philia; in an uncollected “Notes” column published in the Los Angeles
Free Press in 1972, the story was preceded by a note by editor Arthur
Kunkin explaining why he had decided to print a work of fiction deal-
ing with such a delicate, thorny subject. As a matter of fact, Bukowski
had ventured into gruesome or sexual fiction as early as the mid-1940s:
“Writing about sex, humorously or otherwise, has had its effects upon
my life. I suffer for my writing . . . In my early twenties . . . I was writing
about sex then too” (“Henry Miller” 19). The lost short story “Beer,
Wine, Vodka, Whiskey; Wine, Wine, Wine,” which recounted the infa-
mous bleeding ulcer episode, was rejected in 1954 by Accent because,
according to editor Charles Shattuck, it was “quite a bloody spate.
Perhaps, some day, public taste will catch up with you” (Princeton,
February 27, 1955). Likewise, “The Rapist’s Story,” a precursor to
“The Fiend” in that it anticipated a similar subject matter, was rejected
by Whit Burnett and many other small press editors in the early 1950s,
although it was eventually self-published in Harlequin in 1957. By late
1969, however, Shattuck’s predictions turned out to be accurate since
audiences had finally embraced Bukowski’s literary efforts.
“An American Legend”

Shortly after he wrote “The Fiend,” Bukowski was institutionally
acknowledged in late 1969, when UCSB acquired the first of many
installments that eventually made up the “Charles Bukowski Papers,”

one of the most valuable collections of Bukowski’s archival material
in the world. In 1968, in a letter to Blazek, Bukowski mentioned the
possibility of such an acquisition by UCSB, stressing its financial sig-
nificance: “[S]ome university is offering me $$$$$ for a collection of
my materials, and the more I can give them, natch, the more I will be
able to make” (Screams 335). Yet another stepping stone to popularity
and success materialized with Bukowski’s first public readings ever on
December 19 and 20 of that year. After decades of stubborn refusal,
Bukowski finally consented to give a public poetry reading, probably
as a means of extra income since he feared that the post office would
soon fire him.
Before those two public readings took place in December 1969,
Bukowski had already tried to set up several readings in different
venues. In October 1969 he accepted an invitation from one of the
Chicago Review editors, Iven Lourie, to read in Chicago in early 1970.
Similarly, in November 1969 the poetry editor of Jeopardy magazine,
Carl Waluconis, invited Bukowski to read at the Western Washington
State College in Bellingham, an event that was eventually held—and
filmed—in May 1970. The December 1969 readings drew a consid-
erable audience, duly covered by the underground press: “Nervous
about them as any kid . . . Both of the readings were great . . . The audi-
ence each night stayed right with him,” remarked John Thomas in
the Los Angeles Free Press (“Horatio” 31). In a prescient tone, Thomas
concluded the review by warning readers “how misfortunate it
would be for them to miss his readings yet-to-come” (ibid.) Indeed,
as discussed in biographies, documentaries, and countless articles,
Bukowski’s public poetry readings in the 1970s became legendary
performances due to their somewhat unconventional staging as well
as Bukowski’s drunken delivery of his most accessible, popular work
all the while interchanging insults and verbal thrusts with irate, yet
enraptured audiences.
Nevertheless, the event that definitely solidified his reputation
as a writer was the publication of The Days Run Away Like Wild
Horses Over the Hills on December 30, 1969. Often cited as one of
his most accomplished volumes of poetry, all the poems had been
meticulously culled from previous periodical appearances by his bib-
liographer, Sanford Dorbin, who explained that the collection “was
intentionally conceived as a retrospective exhibit” (“The Little Mag”
30). The other books released in 1969, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, A
Bukowski Sampler, and Penguin Modern Poets, can also be consid-
ered “retrospective exhibits,” which stresses the impact of the little
magazine, the small press, and the underground press on Bukowski’s

rising popularity. Decades later, Black Sparrow Press would put out
another book featuring early poems exclusively retrieved from the
littles, The Roominghouse Madrigals (1988), which was nonetheless
met with mixed reviews. The Days, however, was almost unanimously
considered a masterpiece, “one of the milestone books of Bukowski’s
career. There was no blurb on the back, no quotes from other writ-
ers saying what a brilliant fellow Bukowski was, just the ten words of
the title running down the cover, like a poem” (Sounes, Locked 98).
Barbara Martin crafted the sober, elegant design of the book, and the
contents were mostly edited by Dorbin. His editorial involvement was
only acknowledged by means of a short, heartfelt note by Bukowski
issued in the first printings of the book, although it was surrepti-
tiously removed in later ones.
John Martin insisted on using poems that Dorbin disliked, such as
“What a Man I Was,” and he also chose to discard some of the longer
pieces, including the classic “Fire Station.” As Dorbin recalled: “I got
Martin to let me put together a book from small press stuff and little
mags . . . I remember making photocopies of the pages I wanted to use
for The Days, right out of the chapbooks or magazines . . . [Martin]
did limit the book’s length. He took out, or had me take out, a quire’s
worth . . . That quire became the chapbook Fire Station” (Dorbin,
“Answering”; emphasis in the original). Indeed, Fire Station was pub-
lished three months later by Noel Young and Graham Mackintosh
under their Capricorn Press imprint, but Martin changed his mind
over time as those unused poems were later collected in Play the Piano
Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed
a Bit (1979).
In a 1970 letter to Weissner, Bukowski mentioned that The Days
had “just about s.o.—1500 copies of poesy” (McCormick, Weissner,
April 14, 1970), and by October of that year the book had already
sold out: “Martin has 200 unfilled orders waiting. he’s running a
2nd. edition. which doesn’t prove I’m anything. The L.A. Times is
full of crap and sells a million copies a day. Pancho Villa and Grandma
Barker couldn’t sell a shoelace” (McCormick, Weissner, October 25,
1970). Humorous tone notwithstanding, Bukowski was probably
exultant. Both At Terror Street and The Days sold out in a relatively
short period of time. At long last, his unrelenting contributions to
the little magazines and the underground press were beginning to
substantially pay off.
The Days was published on December 30, 1969, but the most sig-
nificant event of the year, perhaps of the decade, had yet to take place.
Motivated by his growing success on the literary scene and a life-

long financial incentive put forward by Martin, Bukowski decided to
resign from his job at the post office, where he had worked as a clerk
for almost 12 years, in order to become a full-time professional writer.
Sounes argues that Bukowski “was about to be dismissed for absen-
teeism,” hence downplaying that he had quit the post office “bravely”
(Locked 101). In any event, Martin recalled this crucial episode thus:
Before I published The Days Run Away, I saw that Hank’s job at
the post office was slowly killing him . . . My “regular” job paid me
$600 month and I was usually able to take $25 week for myself out of
B[lack] S[parrow] P[ress].
One evening I sat down with Hank and we talked about what it
would take to get him out of the post office. We sat and added up his
basic absolutely-necessary expenses . . . To my surprise the total came
to just $100. Hank also had ca. $3,000 in his post office retirement
account which he could cash out whenever he wanted. So I impulsively
blurted out that if he would quit the post office and write exclusively
for BSP, that I would pay him $100 a month for life, regardless of
whether we succeeded as a writer/publisher team.
It took a few months for Hank to get up his courage to leave a
regular salary and to put this plan into action, but at the end of the
year Hank gave notice and quit his postal job as of December 31,
1969. (J. Martin, “your first”)
The exact date of Bukowski’s resignation remains a mystery. Sounes

maintains that it took place shortly after the poetry reading Bukowski
gave on December 20, 1969, whereas Cherkovski claims that it was
on January 2, 1970, and Miles on January 9. Bukowski himself men-
tioned yet another date in a letter to Dorbin: “Rec. your Jan. 2 letter
from Santa Fe, but quit post office on the 7th. Jan., then blasted off for
a week and a half whiskey-wine drunk” (“Unpublished” February 6,
1970). At any rate, Bukowski did notify his decision to the post office
during the very last days of December 1969 or the first week of January
1970.
According to Bukowski, and all biographers, after the ten-day
drinking spree that ensued upon his resignation, he proceeded to write
a novel that was completed by early February. After the unfinished
A Place to Sleep the Night (1956) and The Way the Dead Love (1966),
Post Office was Bukowski’s first full-length novel. Martin reminisced
about its inception in the following terms: “I had mentioned to Hank
that if he ever thought he could write a novel, that would make our
success more likely. And the story is true that he began writing Post
Office on January 2, 1970 without saying anything to me about it”
(“your first”). Bukowski wrote furiously during the following weeks,
typing between 10 and 20 pages daily, and, as Martin recalled, “some-
time toward the end of January he called me and simply said, ‘It’s
done. Come and get it.’ I asked him what he was talking about. And
he said, ‘You told me to write a novel, and it’s done.’ I said, ‘What
enabled you to write a novel in less than a month?’ He replied, ‘Fear’”
(“your first”). Somehow, Bukowski infected Martin with his myth-
making abilities because he talked about Post Office in a January 27
letter to Martin, weeks before he actually finished it.
Indeed, while Martin, Miles, and Cherkovski contend that Post
Office was completed during the third week of January 1970, the
correspondence from that period reveals that it was concluded in early
February: “I’m on page 133 of a novel or whatever it is . . . It’s just
about finished . . . The thing is called Post Office. Naturally” (Dorbin,
“Unpublished” February 6, 1970). Ten days later, his fictional adven-
tures and misfortunes at the post office had come to an end, as he
remarked to Weissner: “I have just finished my first novel, Post Office”
(McCormick, Weissner, February 16, 1970). As Martin noted, fear
urged Bukowski to take his new job as a professional writer seriously
enough as to complete his first novel in record time.
Bukowski’s resignation from the post office to make it as full-
time author was undoubtedly the culmination of a series of events.
While Martin’s promise of a monthly check was a decisive incentive,
Bukowski’s growing reputation and success in the alternative publish-
ing scene were critical factors as well. As Miles asserted, by the end of
1969 Bukowski “had become a cult figure” (174), the genuine King
of the Underground. Bill Katz, an authority on the littles, firmly
believed that Bukowski was “an American legend” (1848), an opinion
later shared by several critics.
However, achieving such a status had only been possible due to his
unwavering resolve to be published as often as possible in hundreds
of little magazines and underground newspapers from the 1940s
onward, which eventually earned him the oft-cited tag of most pub-
lished author of the 1960s. Dorbin’s remarkably accurate definition
of The Days as a “retrospective exhibit” can be extended to the other
volumes of poetry and fiction released in 1969, thus turning that year
into a crowning summation of his best work to date. Little magazine
and small press publications played an invaluable role in this process,
and the fact that these periodical appearances were repeatedly praised
by experts and critics alike, and even won Bukowski institutional rec-
ognition, constituted the final, crucial stepping stone to popularity,
encouraging him to fully devote himself to the writing trade.
Bukowski unabashedly satisfied his hunger for exposure and
showed his loyalty to the small press by declining offers from impor-
tant New York–based publishing houses in the decades to come.
Instead, he achieved international prestige and financial success via
Black Sparrow Press, City Lights, and substantial European sales. As
Martin reminisced, “[T]hat $100 a month secured Hank’s life-long
loyalty to BSP. That $100 also soon began to grow and by the time
he died Hank was receiving a retainer of $10,000 a month and an
additional big check at the end of the year” (J. Martin, “your first”).
By then, Bukowski had fulfilled one of his earliest dreams, that of
being able to live solely off his writing. His unremitting contribution
to countless alternative publications had been a stormy yet fruitful
literary journey where his compulsion to write, his incurable disease,
had been entirely justified.
C H A P T E R 5
Curtain Calls
The little magazines, small press publications, and the underground

press were unarguably instrumental in both enhancing Charles
Bukowski’s reputation as a writer and helping him become the most
published author of the 1960s. They were unquestionably crucial in
his pursuit of fame. Indeed, had it not been for his regular appear-
ances in those publications, which allowed him to fully blossom as an
author, Bukowski might not have achieved such a popular status by
the late 1960s, when he was acclaimed as an international icon.
From the very beginning of his career, Bukowski was resolute to
become well-known on the literary scene at all costs. Far from being
disheartened by constant rejection, he submitted his work to untold
numbers of littles, mimeos, and underground newspapers. After real-
izing in the 1940s that the most prestigious journals were not inter-
ested in his outrageous and excessive output, Bukowski proceeded
to charge the littles in a quixotic attempt to be acknowledged as
an important figure in American letters. It took him almost three
decades of unrelenting submissions, met with growing acceptance
as the literary arena paved the way for, and rapidly developed into,
the revolution of the 1960s, for him to finally achieve the success
he longed for. From the first periodical appearance in 1940 in the
Los Angeles Collegian, for which he had to pay five dollars, to the
pornographic and shocking short stories published in sex papers or
erotic magazines in late 1969 and early 1970, for which he received
substantial amounts, not forgetting the countless littles and mimeos
where his work was, both in the United States and in Europe, increas-
ingly championed by young editors who considered him a “spiritual
leader” (Fox, “Living” 57).
Contrary to popular belief, Bukowski was not only interested in
those outlets that perpetuated his outsider persona. He was eager
to be published in any magazine, regardless of its literary, political,
religious, or social stance, and he sent his work out to a host of little
magazines with apparently clashing values. Bukowski did not believe
in schools or literary movements as long as they published him, and
that is precisely what they did. Several editors of magazines where
Bukowski’s poetry seemed oddly out of place were prompt to justify
their decisions, claiming that his work was too powerful and appeal-
ing to be rejected. The irrefutable acceptance of his literary output
by diverse schools and literary movements contributed greatly to his
growing popularity in the mid- to late 1960s.
Bukowski’s rise to fame was painfully slow, but not “erratic”
(Childress 19). His determination, his unequivocal strange pertinacity
to become popular, as Burnett presciently observed, was ultimately
repaid, but first he had to endure a rugged, at times ungrateful, odys-
sey through the alternative publishing scene. Many of his poems and
short stories underwent a similarly long journey. “I Saw a Tramp Last
Night” deserves special attention since it could be taken as a metaphor
of Bukowski’s own tenacity to overcome any and all hardships at the
time:
the way the old dog walked

with clotted, tired fur
down nobody’s alley
being nobody’s dog . . .
past the empty vodka bottles
past the peanut butter jars,
with wires full of electricity
and the birds asleep somewhere,
down the alley he went—
nobody’s dog
moving through it all,
brave as any army. (Continual 113)
The poem was first rejected by The Fiddlehead, a Canadian magazine

edited by Fred Cogswell, in 1957. In a 1965 letter to Purdy, Bukowski
reminisced about the event in vindictive terms: “[Cogswell] rejected
some of my poetry when I first started and I forget NOTHING.
NOTHING. NOTHING!!!” (The B./Purdy Letters 38). Probably
unbeknownst to Bukowski, Cogswell lamented not having accepted
the poem in a 1966 review of Crucifix: “[T]o my great regret I once
rejected some of his earlier work” (70). “I Saw a Tramp Last Night” was
printed in 1960 in Scimitar and Song, an obscure little magazine with
limited circulation. This periodical appearance remains unrecorded
because, in all likelihood, he did not receive the customary contributor’s
CURTAIN CALLS 175
copy or, if he did, it was possibly lost before Fox and Dorbin compiled
their bibliographies in 1969. After uncovering the poem in July 2008,
it was reprinted as a broadside by Bottle of Smoke Press in December
2008, and it was finally—and prominently—published by Ecco on the
back cover of The Continual Condition in 2009. There is an evident
parallel between Bukowski’s unswerving journey through the little
magazine scene, before being accepted as an important author in the
late 1960s, and the many rejections, reprints, and acceptances some of
his poems and short stories experienced before earning a most deserved
book publication.
Several elements were instrumental in helping him become a well-
known author in the American underground. The fact that countless
little magazines and newspapers published his work definitely con-
tributed to his popularity. Complimentary reviews in large circulation
newspapers such as the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, or
interviews in Literary Times and Los Angeles Free Press, were equally
decisive in bringing about recognition. Likewise, those periodicals or
publications featuring his works that were censored, suppressed, or
seized by the police considerably boosted his cachet. The infamous
apocryphal Genet/Sartre quotation, asserting that Bukowski was
“the best poet in America,” was yet another unquestionable stepping
stone to fame.
Finally, but of no minor importance, most of the key editors and
publishers in Bukowski’s early career discovered his work in the littles
or mimeos and, in turn, they further promoted his poetry and prose
in their own publications, most notably in the case of Jon and Louise
Webb, Marvin Malone, Douglas Blazek, John Martin, and John
Bryan, although I have underscored other lesser-known instances,
which, nonetheless, were similarly determining in his growing success
and acceptance by the late 1960s, such as E. V. Griffith, Carl Larsen,
Ron Offen, R. R. Cuscaden, and J. R. Nash.
Perhaps the single most important implication is that Bukowski
always remained loyal to those small press publishers who unflag-
gingly supported his work. Indeed, Bukowski seldom turned his back
on the editors who helped him when he started out as a writer, espe-
cially in the case of John Martin and his Black Sparrow Press imprint,
Marvin Malone and Wormwood Review, or, later on, William Packard
and the New York Quarterly, Arthur Kunkin and the Los Angeles Free
Press, A. D. Winans and Second Coming, Helen Friedland and Poetry/
LA , and Marcus Grapes and Onthebus, to name a few. In a 1978
letter to Martin, Bukowski stressed why he had not forsaken Black
Sparrow Press: “I’ve had offers from New York publishers, I’ve had
offers from competitors. I’ve stayed with you. People have told me
that I was stupid, many people. That hasn’t bothered me. I make up
my own mind for my own reasons. You were there when nobody else
was” (Davidson, August 29, 1978). Bukowski’s decision to opt out of
those major New York publishing houses foregrounds his loyalty to
the little magazines and the small press.
Bukowski’s editorial (un)skillfulness further illustrates his thor-
ough involvement in the littles. Harlequin became the most infamous
case of his editorial maneuvers, such as rejecting accepted material
to take revenge on those editors who had dismissed his work in the
past, particularly because the episode was duly voiced in Trace. In
yet another instance of editorial vendetta, Bukowski selected poems
previously discarded by the editors who had released his first chap-
books for their inclusion in the only book he ever edited in his long
career, Cold Dogs in the Courtyard, and he chastised them by publicly
explaining his decision in the foreword to the chapbook. His third
editorial incursion proved to be ill-fated to John Bryan as Bukowski’s
resolution to print a polemic short story by Jack Micheline contrib-
uted to the demise of Bryan’s Open City. Likewise, coediting Laugh
Literary, a childlike divertimento, allowed him and Neeli Cherkovski
to return most of the poetry submitted to the little with accompany-
ing scathing rejection slips. Bukowski’s editorial (in)ability reinforces
a crucial notion: his passionate involvement in the littles scene as both
contributor and editor.
Looking Forward: 1970–1994 and Beyond

Despite tireless competition from prolific authors such as Judson
Crews, Gerald Locklin, or the ubiquitous Lyn Lifshin, Bukowski
continued to be, thanks to his antics and deliberate clownish perfor-
mances, the king of the underground and the epitome of the littles
in the ensuing decades, stressing his loyalty to those small press edi-
tors who had first championed his work and consolidating his pres-
ence in new ventures such as the New York Quarterly, Chiron Review,
or Slipstream. However, periodicals played a secondary role during
this period, and the dramatic rise in popularity from the early 1970s
onward was no longer solely attributable to the small press.
In late 1970, the apocryphal endorsement by French intellectu-
als Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Genet appeared in Los Angeles Times,
reaching an inconceivably large audience. In 1971, Raymond Carver
arranged a poetry reading for Bukowski at the University of California
at Santa Cruz. As a tribute of sorts, years later Carver wrote “You
CURTAIN CALLS 177
Don’t Know What Love Is (an Evening with Charles Bukowski),”

a long, spot-on poem about his meeting Bukowski. The next year,
City Lights brought out Erections, a collection of his wildest stories
culled from underground newspapers. In May 1973, the National
Endowment for the Arts awarded Bukowski a $5,000 Creative
Writing Fellowship to write a novel—the NEA had rejected a pre-
vious application in 1967, and he failed to secure the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1973. That same year, Taylor
Hackford premiered the documentary Bukowski to critical acclaim,
and Esquire requested Bukowski a prose piece for a feature titled
“How to Shave Right,” where famous authors were to write about
their shaving techniques.
Rolling Stone, another mainstream magazine, interviewed
Bukowski in 1976, making him popular outside the literary circles.
The next year, the Blue Book came out in Germany, bringing about
astronomical sales and success in his homeland. In 1978, he infa-
mously and drunkenly walked off the Apostrophes set, much to the
astonishment of the distressed host of the show, Bernard Pivot, who
simply made a snide remark about the state of American literature
when Bukowski was off set. According to legend, the next day all his
books were sold out in France. In September 1978, Anne Waldman
requested Bukowski that he give two lectures and a reading at The
Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute,
but Bukowski turned the invitation down. A month later, Ginsberg,
who had founded The Jack Kerouac School with Waldman, tried
unsuccessfully to persuade Bukowski again. Bukowski’s reply was a
terse “no, thank you.”
In 1980, cult French director Jean-Luc Godard commissioned
Bukowski to Americanize the dialogue for the Slow Motion film sub-
titles, which Bukowski did “half-heartedly” (Goldstein 1). The next
year, Marco Ferreri’s Tales of Ordinary Madness, starring Ben Gazzara
and Ornella Mutti, and based on Bukowski’s texts, was premiered at
the Venice Film Festival. Years later, a critic insisted on his inexplica-
bly disproportionate European recognition: “In Germany and France
his visits are major cultural events. Newspapers run front-page stories.
Fans follow him around as if he were a rock star” (Ciotti 12). By 1985,
Bukowski’s sales amounted to 40 percent of the Black Sparrow Press
sales volume, which allowed Martin to publish many other authors
to his liking, such as John Fante, Wyndham Lewis, Robert Duncan,
Paul Bowles, Michael McClure, and Gertrude Stein.
By late 1987, after the premiere of Barfly at the Cannes Film
Festival, directed by Barbet Schroeder and based on a script by
Bukowski himself, originally titled The Rats of Thirst (1979), he

had already become “the most widely read living American writer in
translation in the world today. More than 2.2 million copies of his
works have been sold in Germany alone” (Penn 94). Although he was
interviewed or featured in mass-circulation periodicals such as People,
Interview, Life, or Time, in 1987 he declined invitations to 20–20, 60
minutes, and the Johnny Carson show—in the early 1980s, he had
already turned down $10,000 to give two readings in Amsterdam,
and in 1993 he begged off on a $25,000-dollar offer to appear on
PBS. By the time of his death in March 1994, Bukowski was “the
best-selling poet in the world, and the most widely-read contempo-
rary author in translation” (J. Smith, Art 91). The astounding num-
ber of books published during his career, most of them still available
in print, as well as his irrefutable fame in non-English-speaking coun-
tries, is indeed remarkable: Basinski explained that by 1992 Bukowski
had published “more than sixty books of poetry and prose . . . More
than fifteen hundred magazine publications” (“Charles Bukowski”
58). By 2000, worldwide sales exceeded 15 million copies and he had
been translated into 20 languages.
New books, featuring many uncollected poems and prose pieces,
have been released yearly by Ecco or City Lights since 2003. His
popularity is further reinforced by countless websites, movies based
on his novels, documentaries about his life, online advertisements fea-
turing his poetry—Levi’s used “The Laughing Heart” in 2011 and
Bacardi “So You Want to Be a Writer?” in 2013—biographies, critical
works, fanzines, musical renditions of his poems by internationally
renowned rock bands such as U2 or iconoclastic songwriters as Tom
Waits. When auctioned, his books, paintings, manuscript letters, and
poems consistently fetch mind-boggling amounts for a small press
author.
In the light of this, it is not surprising that Peter Michelson, an
expert in the little magazine field, claims that “Charles Bukowski,
who ten or fifteen years ago was regarded as an illiterate drunk, is
now practically a national hero” (373). Curt Johnson, who published
Bukowski in December magazine, ran December Press for several
decades, and was considered an eminent figure of the small press
scene, was unstinting in his praise of Bukowski’s relevance in contem-
porary American literature when defining the main literary groups
across the country; indeed, Bukowski was the only author listed by
way of definition: “The East Coast has faith, based on its power. The
Third Coast has hope and the West Coast has charity, and Charles
Bukowski” (“December” 249).
CURTAIN CALLS 179
I have found chronological evidence particularly useful to reassess

those unfounded statements and mistaken assertions axiomatically
reproduced in biographies and critical studies, such as the suppos-
edly pro-Nazi letters submitted to the Los Angeles Examiner or that
Bukowski allegedly did not correspond with Whit Burnett nor submit
to Story after 1945. Likewise, in an effort to solidify the ten-year-drunk
myth, Bukowski repeatedly declared in interviews that he had not pro-
duced any writing from 1945 to 1955, probably because he believed
that his literary production during that period was rather unaccom-
plished. While he would even deprecate his own self-mythologizing
strategy by providing contradictory dates and statements, and biog-
raphers Miles and Sounes did stress Bukowski’s erratic and unreliable
reasoning, some critics unquestioningly fueled the myth Bukowski
had so shrewdly devised. In yet another attempt at perpetuating his
persona, the chronology and events pertaining to his involvement in
Harlequin were unabashedly misrepresented in interviews to enhance
his purported genius status, later gullibly reproduced almost verbatim
in most biographies and studies.
Further chronological data would help reevaluate inaccurate
assumptions related to the late period. For instance, Russell Harrison
(252–54) contends that most of the “old” short stories published in
Erections (1972) or South of No North (1973) are considerably less
crafted than the “new” ones printed in Hot Water Music (1983). A
thorough analysis of the short stories collected in Hot Water Music,
however, reveals that the vast majority of them had been published
in underground newspapers in the 1970s. While Harrison maintains
that “Decline and Fall” (Hot Water) is an improvement upon “The
Fuck Machine” (Erections) and “Maja Thurup” (South) because he
believes it was written in the 1980s and, hence, the sexual scenes are
“far more effective” (263), that story had first appeared in a 1973
issue of Los Angeles Weekly News. Similarly, in a review of Bukowski’s
anthology The Pleasures of the Damned (2007) published in the New
York Times Book Review, critic and author Jim Harrison excerpts from
“Sun Coming Down” and states that the poem was “evidently writ-
ten quite near the end of his life” (17) because Bukowski metaphori-
cally discusses death. Nevertheless, it actually is one of his earliest
poems, dating back to the period when Bukowski was tooting his
own horn in Harlequin in 1957.
I can only hope that future researchers, biographers, and literati
shed more light on Bukowski’s journey through the little maga-
zines and small press during his late career to establish their signifi-
cance and how crucial they were as an outlet, highlighting in which
ways he remained loyal to the publishers who always supported his

work. Although it is certainly impossible to debunk at a stroke the
many myths and distortions that plague Bukowski’s life and work,
I do believe it is a feasible goal if there is no rush to reach the fin-
ish line. In all likelihood, my aspirations are unrealistic, but I expect
that expressions such as “unexplored arena,” “uncharted territory,”
“unfounded statements,” and “inaccurate assumptions” are expunged
from Bukowski’s studies before long.
A ppendi x
Research in the Bukowski collections housed in the Davidson

Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara; in the Special
Collections at the University of Arizona, Tucson; the Huntington
Library in San Marino, California; and the Doheny Memorial Library
at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles was invalu-
able in helping me fill in the gaps in the existing bibliographies and
checklists. My visits to the Poetry Collection at the State University of
New York at Buffalo and the John Hay Library at Brown University,
where I could consult over a thousand magazine issues, as well as the
material received by mail from dozens of institutions, were also fun-
damental to my research.
Aaron Krumhansl’s A Descriptive Bibliography of the Primary
Publications of Charles Bukowski (1999) does not include periodi-
cal publications, and Al Fogel’s Charles Bukowski: A Comprehensive
Price-Guide and Check List 1944–1999 (2000), because it is primarily
a price guide rather than a checklist, does not list Bukowski’s con-
tributions to periodicals either. Sanford Dorbin’s A Bibliography of
Charles Bukowski (1969) lists 605 periodical contributions for the
period of 1940–1969, whereas my checklist contains 762 entries, over
a 25 percent increase. In addition, I have corrected inaccuracies in
entries in earlier bibliographies, such as listing the second page of a
poem as a separate poem or mistakenly recording magazines as hav-
ing published material by Bukowski.
However comprehensive it is, given the ephemeral nature and limited
circulation of many of the little magazines to which Bukowski submit-
ted his work, this checklist certainly is not complete. It is known, from
references in his correspondence, that he sent his poetry to littles such
as Maestro Insana’s Review, Aquarius, Aristotle’s Animals, Le Petit
Sphinx, and Wheel, to name a few that are not recorded in any online
database. Although I have been unable to locate copies of these maga-
zines, I hope that future research may well track down these littles to
determine whether or not Bukowski did publish in them.
Little magazines and underground newspapers made Bukowski
popular in the 1960s while broadsides, chapbooks, books, and assorted
182 APPENDIX
ephemera had a very minor impact on his career during this early period,
which explains why they are not covered in this checklist. The date is
followed by an alphabetical listing of the periodicals that appeared dur-
ing that year. The default setting for magazine entries is one; numbers
in brackets indicate the total number of issues with a Bukowski contri-
bution; for instance, Targets (3) shows that Bukowski was published in
three separate issues of Targets. Numbers in square brackets indicate the
total number of magazine titles followed by the total number of maga-
zine issues for a given year: “1958: Approach (2), Beloit Poetry Journal,
Compass Review, Hearse, Quicksilver (2), Quixote, San Francisco Review
[7/9]” means that Bukowski’s work was published in seven magazine
titles and nine magazine issues in 1958. The grand total of magazine
titles, magazine issues, and contributions is displayed in both graph and
table form.
1940: Los Angeles Collegian [1/1]
1944: Story [1/1]
1946: Matrix, Portfolio [2/2]
1947: Matrix (2) [1/2]
1948: Matrix [1/1]
1951: Matrix [1/1]
1956: Harlequin, Quixote [2/2]
1957: Existaria, Harlequin, Quixote, Semina, The Naked Ear [5/5]
1958: Approach (2), Beloit Poetry Journal, Compass Review, Hearse,
Quicksilver (2), Quixote, San Francisco Review [7/9]
1959: Coastlines, Epos (2), Flame, Gallows, Hearse, Nomad, Odyssey,
Promotion, Quicksilver, The Half Moon, The Galley Sail Review,
Trace (2), Views, Wanderlust [14/16]
1960: Beatitude, Coastlines, Epos (2), Impetus, Literary Artpress,
Merlin’s Magic (2), Nomad, Quagga (2), Quicksilver, Scimitar
and Song (3), Simbolica, Targets (2), The Galley Sail Review, The
Free Lance, The Sparrow, Today the Stars (Avalon Anthology),
Trace, Wanderlust [18/24]
1961: Anagogic & Paideumic Review (2), Canto, Descant, Epos (2),
Experiment, Hearse (2), Literary Artpress, Merlin’s Magic (3),
Midwest, Oak Leaves, Quicksilver, Renaissance, rongWrong (2),
San Francisco Review, Signet (2), Simbolica (2), Sun, Targets (3),
The Outsider, The Light Year, Venture, Wanderlust (2) [22/33]
1962: Black Cat Review, Brand “X” (2), Choice, El Corno Emplumado,
Epos, In/Sert, Mica (2), Midwest (2), Mummy, Northwest Review,
APPENDIX 183
Outcry, Quicksilver, Renaissance (2), rongWrong, Satis, Signet,

South and West, Sun (3), Targets (3), The Outsider, Wormwood
Review (2) [21/30]
1963: Black Cat Review, Coastlines, El Corno Emplumado, Epos,
Literary Times, Mainstream, Northwest Review (3), Outcry,
Sciamachy, Signet (2), South and West, Targets, The Emerson
Review, Wormwood Review (2) [14/18]
1964: Americas, Borestone, Chat Noir Review, Coastlines, Dust,
Florida Education (2), Literary Times, Midwest, Nadada, Notes
from Underground, Olé, Poets of Today, Sciamachy, Simbolica,
South and West (2), The Goliards, The Outsider, Wormwood
Review (4) [18/23]
1965: Blitz (2), Border (3), Borestone, Dust, Earth, Epos (3), Evidence,
Ferment (2), Florida Education, Graffiti (2), Intermission (2),
Jacaranda, Journal Un/Amerikan (2), Kauri (2), Marrahwannah
Quarterly, Olé (3), Open City Press, Oyez, Showcase, Southern
Poetry Review, The Santa Fe New Mexican (2), The New Lantern
Club, Wild Dog, Wormwood Review (3) [25/40]
1966: American Turf Monthly, Avalanche (3), Blitz, Dare, Down Here,
Dust, Earth Rose, Earth, Eight Pager, El Corno Emplumado,
Entrails (2), Grist, Iconolatre, Intermission Yearbook, Intermission
(3), Intrepid, Kauri (4), Labris, Literary Times, Los Angeles Free
Press, Magazine, Moonstones, Notes from Underground, Olé
(2), Outcast (3), Poetry Newsletter, Showcase, Simbolica, Some/
thing, Spectroscope, Steppenwolf, The Grande Ronde Review, East
Village Other, The Goodly Company, The Hiram Poetry Review,
Vagabond (2), Wormwood Review (3) [37/51]
1967: Choice, Congress, Down Here, Entrails, Evergreen Review,
Grist, In New York, Intrepid (3), Kauri (2), Klactoveedsedsteen,
Labris, Last Times, Literary Times, Los Angeles Free Press, Nexus,
Olé (2), Olé Anthology, Open City (34), Outcast (4), Prism
International, Salted Feathers, Simbolica, The Human Voice
Quarterly, The Willie, The Flash of Pasadena (2), The Vidette,
The Other, Tucson Daily Citizen, Understatement, Vagabond
(2), Writer’s Forum [31/73]
1968: Copkiller, Fuck You!, Ghost-Dance, The Hiram Poetry Review (2),
Intransit, Kaleidoscope, Lampeter Muse, National Underground
Review (3), Open City (47), Other Scenes, Outcast, Satyrday (5),
The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle, The Spectator, The
Willie, Underground Digest (2), Upper Reaches, Wormwood
Review (3) [18/74]
184 APPENDIX
1969: Acid, Amper&and, Berkeley Tribe (3), Caterpillar, Evergreen

Review (2), Ghost-Dance, Hearse (2), Intrepid, Klacto/23
International, Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns
(2), Mad Windows, Merkur, New York Element, New York
Review of Sex and Politics (3), Nola Express (2), Open City
(8), Other Scenes, Panama Gold, Planet People, ppHOO, Silver
Screen, Stony Brook, Stooge, The Outsider, Vagabond, Wormwood
Review, Writing on the Wall [27/42]
Table A.1 The chronological total number of magazine titles

followed by the total number of magazine issues and contributions.
Date Mag. Titles Mag. Issues Contributions
1940 1 1 1
1941 0 0 0
1942 0 0 0
1943 0 0 0
1944 1 1 1
1945 0 0 0
1946 2 2 7
1947 1 1 1
1948 1 1 1
1949 0 0 0
1950 0 0 0
1951 1 1 1
1952 0 0 0
1953 0 0 0
1954 0 0 0
1955 0 0 0
1956 2 2 3
1957 5 5 19
1958 7 9 9
1959 14 16 22
1960 18 24 39
1961 22 33 67
1962 21 30 49
1963 14 18 48
1964 18 23 52
1965 25 40 75
1966 37 51 98
1967 31 73 106
1968 18 74 88
1969 27 42 75
Totals 266 447 762
Periodical appearances, 1940–69
120
Mag. titles
100
Mag. issues
Contributions
80
60
40
20
0
1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970
Graph A.1 The chronological total number of magazine titles and magazine issues featuring Bukowski’s work as well as
the total number of contributions to those magazines.
Timel ine
1920 Born on August 16 in Andernach, Germany, as

Heinrich [Henry] Karl [Charles] Bukowski, Jr. Later
known as Heinie, Buk, Hank, Chaz, and “Chinaski.”
Father, Henry Charles Bukowski, an American soldier
stationed in Germany as a GI; mother, Katherine Fett,
a German seamstress.
1923 Family moves to America in April; Baltimore, Pasadena,
and Los Angeles, eventually settling at 2122 Longwood
Ave.
1933–1935 Attends Mount Vernon Junior High School. Afflicted
with an acute case of acne vulgaris. First known prose
piece [essay on President Hoover]. Lost first short-story
about Baron Manfred von Richthofen. Starts devour-
ing local library.
1936 His father loses his job but pretends otherwise. Excused
from high school due to worsening acne.
1939–1941 First job ever at Sears & Roebuck. Enrolls at Los
Angeles City College to study journalism and English;
drops out in June 1941 without graduating. Meantime,
LA Public Library becomes his sanctuary. First peri-
odical appearance ever: letter to the editor of Cubby
Hole, signed as Henry Bukowski, published in the L.A.
Collegian, Los Angeles City College newspaper. Lost
story and poems published in Write.
1942–1943 “On the bum” years. Hundreds of submissions to
the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, and
Harper’s. The infamous Atlanta episode, almost com-
mitting suicide, saved by the urge to write.
1944 “Aftermath . . . ” published in Story. Includes brief
bio where he changes his name to Charles Bukowski.
Arrested in Philadelphia by FBI agents for supposed
draft dodging; spends 17 days at Moyamensing Prison.
Exempted from service in World War II after physical
188 TIMELINE
and psychological tests. Returns to LA. Lives with his

parents.
1945–1947 Begins the supposed ten-year drunk. Very scant printed
material; “20 Tanks . . . ” published by Black Sun Press,
alongside Miller, Genet, Lorca, Sartre. First poems ever
in Matrix. Meets Jane Cooney Baker ca. 1947.
1950–1952 Works for the first time at the post office as a tempo-
rary mail carrier, signing on full-time as a substitute
carrier for three years in 1952.
1954–1956 Taken to LA County Hospital for a bleeding ulcer
caused by alcoholism. “Begins” writing poetry. Uses
Trace’s directory to find little magazines to submit his
work to. Meets Barbara Fry and marries her in the fall
of 1955 in Las Vegas. Spends three months in Wheeler,
Texas, with Barbara’s family. Resigns from his job at the
post office. His mother dies on Christmas Eve, 1956.
Lost, unfinished novel titled A Place to Sleep the Night.
First European periodical appearance, Quixote. Enrolls
at LA City College to take art classes.
1957 Coedits Harlequin with Fry. The Naked Ear, Existaria.
1958 Divorces Fry in March. His father dies on December 4.
Sells family house for $15,000. Starts working again at
the post office as a mail sorter. Beloit Poetry Journal.
1959 Increasing little magazine appearances: Nomad, Coast-
lines, Quicksilver, Epos, and so on
1960 First chapbook: Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail. Contacts
The Outsider editors.
1961 Eleven poems, “some of the best he had written” to
date (Sounes, Locked 48), in The Outsider #1. Longshot
Pomes for Broke Players. Tries to gas himself to death.
Begins corresponding with Corrington.
1962 Jane C. Baker dies in January at 51. Depression fol-
lows. Run with the Hunted and Poems and Drawings
published. First important review on his work, by R.
R. Cuscaden, where he’s compared to Baudelaire.
Published in Europe for the second time (Satis). First
poems in the Wormwood Review.
1963 Meets Frances Smith, mother of his only child, Marina
Bukowski. It Catches My Heart in Its Hands released
to critical acclaim. “Outsider of the Year” award and
portrait on front cover of The Outsider #3. Meets Neeli
TIMELINE 189
Cherkovski. First published interview in Chicago’s

Literary Times.
1964 Marina Bukowski is born on September 7. Moves to
De LongPre Avenue. Contacts Douglas Blazek. Meets
the Webbs. Begins correspondence with Purdy. First
poems in Olé.
1965 Visits the Webbs in New Orleans, where also meets
Corrington, resulting in the end of their friendship.
Crucifix in a Deathhand published. Cold Dogs in the
Courtyard. “Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to
Live with Beasts” chapbook and “A Rambling Essay on
Poetics and the Bleeding Life Written While Drinking
a Six-Pack (Tall)” essay.
1966 Meets John Martin. “All the Assholes in the World
and Mine” chapbook. Published in England, Belgium,
and Germany. Begins second, unfinished, novel, The
Way the Dead Love. First broadsides by Black Sparrow
Press. Richmond busted for publishing The Earth Rose;
FBI seizes his books and Bukowski’s. Authorities raid
Jim Lowell’s Asphodel bookshop, confiscating many
books, including Bukowski’s The Genius of the Crowd,
published by d. a. levy. Peak of the mimeograph revo-
lution; increasing acceptance of his work. Iconolatre,
British “little” where Carl Weissner discovers his work.
Atomic Scribblings from a Maniac Age, lost book of
drawings and poems.
1967 Begins “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” columns in Open
City, achieving minor fame in the underground scene.
Evergreen Review.
1968 At Terror Street and Agony Way ; Poems Written Before
Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window. Interviewed by
postal authorities.
1969 Four anthologies showcasing his best work to date:
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills ; A
Bukowski Sampler ; Notes of a Dirty Old Man; Penguin
Modern Poets. Coedits Laugh Literary and Man the
Humping Guns with Neeli Cherkovski. Critical studies
by Dorbin and Fox. First public poetry readings ever.
UCSB acquires first installment of his material.
1970 Quits post office job in early January 1970 and, with
the monthly $100 paycheck from J. Martin and a solid
190 TIMELINE
background in the alternative publishing scene, starts

his full-time writing career. Completes first novel,
Post Office, in February, published in 1971. Notes with
apocryphal Henry Miller blurb by Weissner reviewed in
Der Spiegel in Germany. Genet/Sartre fake quotation
printed in the Los Angeles Times.
[...]
1993 Diagnosed with myelogenous leukemia; gives up drink-

ing and smoking. Undergoes chemotherapy.
1994 Dies of leukemia on March 9.
Wor k s Cited
Alberta: Black Sparrow Press Archive (BSP 75–11-F), Bruce Peel Special
Collections Library, University of Alberta, Canada.
Anania, Michael, and Ralph J. Mills, Jr. “Karl Shapiro. An Interview on
Poetry.” Anderson and Kinzie 197–215.
Anderson, Elliott, and Mary Kinzie, eds. The Little Magazine in America: A
Modern Documentary History. Yonkers, NY: The Pushcart Press, 1978.
Andrews, Michael. “Charles Bukowski. A Conversation with Michael
Andrews.” Onthebus 5 (Spring 1990): 162–76.
Aposhian, Gary, ed. Charles Bukowski: The FBI Files. San Clemente, CA: 12
Gauge Press, 2004.
———. Free Thought. San Clemente, CA: FreeThought Publications,
Summer 2000.
Apostolides, Alex. “Notes from Underground.” Adam February 1970:
31–34, 66.
Arnoldy, John. “Drawings.” Email to the author, February 8, 2009.
Arone, Phyllis Onstott. “Life Is a Handkerchief Full of Snot, By Quarrels
Bubullski.” The Sixties 9 (Spring 1967): 67–68.
Backwords, Ace. “Bukowski on World War II.” Twisted Image 40 (May
1992). Reprinted in Mineshaft 15 (April 2005): 44–46.
———. “The World’s Greatest Fucker.” Twisted Image 8 (January 1987): 1.
Bancroft: Lawrence Ferlinghetti papers, BANC MSS 90/30 c, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Bangs, Lester. Rev. of Notes of a Dirty Old Man and Erections, Ejaculations,
Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness. By Bukowski. Creem
October 1974: 59.
Barker, David. Charles Bukowski Spit In My Face: A Memoir. Salem, OR:
Barker, 1984.
———. Charles Bukowski: A Bibliographic Price Guide. Salem, OR: Barker,
1983.
Basinski, Michael. “Bukowski in the Maw of the Cannon: An Open Letter in
the Hope of Forum.” Sure. The Charles Bukowski Newsletter 8/9 (1993):
30–32.
———. “Charles Bukowski.” Dictionary of Literary Biography 130 (1992):
56–64.
———.“Charles Bukowski in the American Grain and Other Matters.” Sure.
The Charles Bukowski Newsletter 8/9 (1993): 52–56.
192 WORKS CITED
Basinski, Michael. “His Wife, the Painter, the Old Man on the Corner and
Waste Basket.” Sure. The Charles Bukowski Newsletter 7 (1993): 40–43.
Baughan, Michael Gray. Charles Bukowski. Philadelphia: Chelsea House
Publishers, 2004.
Bennett, John. “Vagabond/Bukowski.” Email to the author, April 28, 2007.
Berman, Shirley. “Berman & Bukowski.” Email to the author, May 21,
2010.
Bizio, Silvia. “Charles Bukowski. Quotes of a Dirty Old Man.” High Times
January 1982: 33–36, 98, 100.
Black, Michael. “The New York Sex Papers.” Adam February 1970: 74–77.
Blair, Edward, ed. Bukowski-Loujon Press. Catalog Number One. New
Orleans, LA: House of Books, 1994.
Blazek, Douglas. “Olé.” Kruchkow and Johnson 104–23.
Blunden, Ron. “Faulkner, Hemingway, Mailer . . . and now, Bukowski?!” The
Paris Metro 3.21 (October 11, 1978): 15–18.
Bradbury, Malcolm. “The Literary Magazines.” The Guardian November
22, 1962: 8.
Brewer, Gaylord. Charles Bukowski. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997.
Brownson, Charles W. “Access to Little Magazines.” RQ 22.4 (Summer
1983): 375–87.
Bryan, John. “The Death of Charles Bukowski.” Weizmann 28–33.
Bukowski, Charles. “20 Tanks from Kasseldown.” Portfolio. An International
Review III (Spring 1946): leaf 8.
———. “80 Airplanes Don’t Put You in the Clear.” Harlequin 2.1 (1957):
16–19.
———. “ . . . American Express, Athens, Greece.” Wormwood Review 5.2
(July 1965): 29–30.
———. “Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip.” Story: The Magazine of the
Short Story 24.106 (March/April 1944): 2, 4–5, 97–99.
———. “Another Portfolio.” Portfolio (October/November 1990): 15.
———. “Archilochos Knew How.” N.d. Unpublished typescript poem made
available to the author.
———. At Terror Street and Agony Way. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press,
1968.
———. “Author’s Introduction.” Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame:
Selected Poems 1955–1973. Twenty-Fourth Printing. By Bukowski. Santa
Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1998. N. pag.
———. “Basic Training.” Portfolio (January 1991): 8–9.
———. Beerspit Night and Cursing. The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski
and Sheri Martinelli 1960–1967. Ed. Steve Moore. Santa Rosa, CA: Black
Sparrow Press, 2001.
———. Betting on the Muse. Poems & Stories. Fifth Printing. Santa Rosa, CA:
Black Sparrow Press, 1999.
———. “The Birth, Life, and Death of an Underground Newspaper.”
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary
WORKS CITED 193
Madness. Ed. Gail Chiarrello. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books,
1972. 109–29.
———. Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems. Second Printing. Santa Rosa, CA:
———. The Bukowski/Purdy Letters 1966–1974 . Ed. Seamus Cooney. Sutton
West & Santa Barbara: The Paget Press, 1983.
———. A Bukowski Sampler. Ed. Douglas Blazek. Third Printing. Houston,
TX: Quixote Press, 1983.
———. Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955–1973.
Twenty-Fourth Printing. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1998.
———. “Cacoethes Scribendi.” Matrix 10.3/4 (Fall/Winter 1947): 32–34.
———. Cold Dogs in the Courtyard. Chicago, IL: Literary Times-Cyfoeth
Press, 1965.
———. The Continual Condition. New York, NY: Ecco, 2009.
———. Crucifix in a Deathhand. New Orleans, LA: Loujon Press, 1965.
———. Dangling in the Tournefortia. Ninth Printing. Santa Rosa, CA: Black
———. “Dirty Old Man Confesses.” Adam October 1971: 11, 71–81.
———. “East Hollywood: The New Paris.” Second Coming 10.1–2 (1981):
12–20.
———. “Editors (and others) Write.” Trace 36 (March/April 1960): 16.
———. “Editors Write.” Trace 33 (August/September 1959): 15–16.
———. Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary
Madness. Ed. Gail Chiarello. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1972.
———. “Examining My Peers.” Literary Times May 1964: 1, 3.
———. “Export.” Descant 6.1 (Fall 1961): 26.
———. Factotum. Twenty-Seventh Printing. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow
Press, 2000.
———. “The Fiend.” Adam February 1970: 46–49.
———. Fire Station. Santa Barbara, CA: Capricorn Press, 1970.
———. Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail. Eureka, CA: Hearse Press, 1960.
———. Foreward. Cold Dogs in the Courtyard. By Bukowski. Chicago, IL:
Literary Times-Cyfoeth Press, 1965. 3.
———. Foreword. Hitler Painted Roses. By Steve Richmond. Santa Monica,
CA: Earth Poet Series, 1966. N. pag.
———. Foreword. Notes of a Dirty Old Man. By Bukowski. North Hollywood,
CA: Essex House, 1969. 5–8.
———. “Freedom.” Olé 1 (1964): N. pag.
———. The Genius of the Crowd. Cleveland, OH: 7 Flowers Press, 1966.
———. Ham on Rye. Twenty-Ninth Printing. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow
Press, 2001.
———. “Hell Is a Closed Door.” The Last Night of the Earth Poems. Eighth
Printing. By Bukowski. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1999. 77–78.
———. “Henry Miller Lives in Pacific Palisades and I Live on Skid Row, Still
Writing About Sex.” Knight Oct. 1972: 17–19, 72.
194 WORKS CITED
Bukowski, Charles. “Hey, Ezra, Listen to This.” War All the Time: Poems
1981–1984. Ninth Printing. By Bukowski. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow
Press, 1998. 211–12.
Bukowski, Charles. “The Hog.” Unpublished twelve-page long short story
made available to the author.
———. “I Found This Atomic Stockpile.” Mag 2 (Winter 1972): 3.
———. “I Live to Write and Now I’m Dying.” Scream 3.2 (1987): 29–32.
———. “I Saw a Tramp Last Night.” Broadside. Dover, DE: Bottle of Smoke
Press, December 2008.
———. “In Defense of a Certain Type of Poetry, a Certain Type of Life, a
Certain Type of Blood-Filled Creature Who Will Someday Die . . . ” Earth
2 (Spring 1966): N. pag.
———. Introduction. Skull Juices. By Douglas Blazek. San Francisco, CA:
twowindows press, 1970.
———. It Catches My Heart in Its Hands. New Orleans, LA: Loujon Press,
1963.
———. “Kenyon Review, After the Sandstorm.” Wormwood Review 24.3
(1985): 121.
———. “The Kenyon Review and Other Matters.” Bone Palace Ballet: New
Poems. Second Printing. By Bukowski. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow
Press, 1997. 55–56.
———. “The Ladies Man of East Hollywood.” Oui February 1985: 76–78,
94–96.
———. The Last Night of the Earth Poems. Eighth Printing. Santa Rosa, CA:
———. “Letter to Aelstyn.” May 29, 1964. Line 7/8 (Spring–Fall 1986):
N. pag.
———. “Letter to De Loach.” Late November 1967. Glazier, All’s Normal
Here 104–107.
———. “Letter to Liddy.” May 26, 1969. Honeysuckle, Honeyjuice. A Tribute
to James Liddy. Ed. Michael S. Begnal. Galway: Arlen House, 2006. 45–46.
———. Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s-1970s. Ed. Seamus Cooney.
Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1995.
———. Longshot Pomes for Broke Players. New York: 7 Poets Press, 1961.
———. “Manifesto: A Call for Our Own Critics.” Nomad 5/6 (Winter–
Spring 1960): 6.
———. “The Master Plan.” You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes
Sense. Twelfth Printing. By Bukowski. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow
Press, 1998. 94–95.
———. Mockingbird Wish Me Luck. Nineteenth Printing. Santa Rosa, CA:
———. “Moving up the Ladder.” Septuagenarian Stew: Poems & Stories.
Tenth Printing. By Bukowski. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press,
1999. 227–29.
———. “My Madness.” Betting on the Muse. Poems & Stories. By Bukowski.
Fifth Printing. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1999. 334–36.
WORKS CITED 195
———. “My Worst Rejection Slip.” Transit 6 (Summer 1994): N. pag.

———. “Narrative Account of Career.” Unpublished “account” submitted
as part of the application for the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Fellowship, 1973: 1–3.
———. The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems. Santa Rosa, CA:
———. “Notes from a Dirty Old Man.” Berkeley Tribe August 8–14, 1969:
12, 18.
———. Notes of a Dirty Old Man. North Hollywood, CA: Essex House,
1969.
———. “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” New York Review of Sex and Politics
Auguat 15, 1969: 18–19.
———. “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” Nola Express August 15–28, 1969:
12, 14.
———. “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” Open City November 30/December
5, 1967: 11–12.
———. “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” Open City December 8–14, 1967: 10.
———. “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” Open City January 12–17, 1968: 12, 14.
———. “An Old Drunk Who Run Out of Luck.” Open City May 5–11,
1967: 11.
———. Open All Night. New Poems. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press,
2000.
———. “The Outsider.” Wormwood Review 45 (1972): 3–11.
———. The People Look Like Flowers at Last: New Poems. New York: Ecco,
2007.
———. Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers
Begin to Bleed a Bit. Seventeenth Printing. Santa Barbara, CA: Black
———. “Playing and Being the Poet.” Explorations (1992): 1–2.
———. The Pleasures of the Damned. Poems 1951–1993. New York: Ecco,
2007.
———. “Poem for Personnel Managers.” Quixote 13 (Spring 1957): 60–64.
———. Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window. Ed. Charles
Potts and Darrell Kerr. Glendale, CA: Poetry X/Change, 1968.
———. “Politics.” South of No North. Twenty-Ninth Printing. By Bukowski.
———. “Portfolio.” Harrison Street Review 2 (1971): 20–24.
———. Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook. Uncollected Stories and
Essays, 1944–1990. Ed. David Stephen Calonne. San Francisco, CA: City
Lights, 2008.
———. Preface. Ask the Dust. By John Fante. Santa Barbara, CA: Black
Sparrow Press, 1980. 5–7.
———. “A Rambling Essay on Poetics and the Bleeding Life Written While
Drinking a Six-Pack (Tall).” A Bukowski Sampler. By Bukowski. Madison,
WI: Druid Books, 1969. 9–15.
———. “The Rapist’s Story.” Harlequin 2.1 (1957): 5–10.
196 WORKS CITED
Bukowski, Charles. Reach for the Sun. Selected Letters 1978–1994. Ed. Seamus
Cooney. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1999.
———. “Reject.” Blow 6 (1984): 14–16.
———. The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946–66. Eighth
Printing. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1998.
———. Run with the Hunted. Chicago, IL: Midwest Poetry Chapbooks,
1962.
———. Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960–1970. Ed. Seamus
Cooney. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1993.
———. Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems. Tenth Printing. Santa Rosa,
CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1999.
———. Sifting through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way. New
Poems. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 2003.
———. “The Silver Christ of Santa Fe.” Nola Express February 19/March
4, 1971: 8–9.
———. Slouching toward Nirvana. New Poems. New York: Ecco, 2005.
———. “Smoke Signals Communications.” Smoke Signals 2.3 (1981): 5–6.
———. South of No North. Twenty-Ninth Printing. Santa Rosa, CA: Black
———. Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews & Encounters, 1963–1993. Ed. David
S. Calonne. Northville, MI: Sun Dog Press, 2003.
———. “Treason.” Beloit Poetry Journal 8.2 (Winter 1957–1958): 4–6.
———. “Trollius and Trellises.” The Last Night of the Earth Poems. Eighth
Printing. By Bukowski. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1999.
54–57.
———. Untitled. A Tribute to Jim Lowell. Ed. T. L. Kryss. Cleveland, OH:
Ghost Press, 1967. N. pag.
———. Untitled contribution. “Little Magazines in America: A Symposium.”
Mainstream 16.6 (June 1963): 43–45.
———. “Upon the Mathematics of the Breath and the Way.” Small Press
Review 4.4 (1973): 16–17.
———. War All the Time: Poems 1981–1984 . Ninth Printing. Santa Rosa,
CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1998.
———. “Wash Over Me, Tired Centuries.” Harlequin 1.1 (Winter 1956):
N. pag.
———. “What Will the Neighbors Think?” Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems.
Second Printing. By Bukowski. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press,
1997. 45–48.
———. “Who’s Big in the ‘Littles.’” Literary Times Winter 1966: 9.
———. “Why Crab?” Los Angeles Collegian 22.42 (May 24, 1940): 4.
———. You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense. Twelfth Printing.
Burns, Jim. “Bukowski.” Poetry Information 12/13 (Spring 1975): 25–30.
———. “Origin.” Poetry Information 15 (Summer 1976): 41–43.
———. “Satis : The History of a Little Magazine.” Beats, Bohemians and
Intellectuals. By Burns. Trent Books, 2000. 160–67.
WORKS CITED 197
Camuto, Robert. “Charles Bukowski: The Skid Row Poet Who Drives a
BMW.” Boulevards 2/8 (August 1980): 32–35.
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Inde x
Accent 2, 31, 59, 62, 63–5, 68–70, Bell, Marvin 102

74–5 Beloit Poetry Journal 26, 68,
Acid 128, 158 77–81, 84, 131, 182
Adam 9, 90, 162, 164–5 Bennett, John 9, 107, 128–9
Allegheny Star Route 158 Bergé, Carol 156
Allen, Donald 138, 154 Berkeley Barb 21, 137
Almquist, Norma 4 Berkeley Renaissance 14
Alpaugh, Lloyd 92 Berkeley Tribe 35, 159, 161
Alton, Lawrence 120 Berman, Wallace 76
Anagogic & Paideumic Review Big Table 15, 79, 92
19, 26, 99, 117, 125 Black Cat Review 9, 114
Antin, David 16, 130–1, 160 Black Mountaineers 1, 16, 23,
Antioch Review 31 156, 160
Anvil 17, 23, 116 Black Mountain Review 16
Aquarius 26, 181 Black Sparrow Press (see also
Aristotle’s Animals 26, 181 Martin, John) 126–7,
The Ark 14, 18, 26, 59, 62 132–3, 150, 160–1,
Arnoldy, John 5, 120, 122 167, 170, 175
Arsenault, Jean 75 At Terror Street and Agony
Artaud, Antonin 76, 81, 137 Way 126, 133,
Ashbery, John 17 148–9, 167
Asphodel bookshop raid 82–3 Bukowski loyalty to 25, 170,
Atlantic Monthly 25–6, 47–8, 175–6
54, 59, 65, 87 The Days Run Away Like Wild
Atom Mind 9 Horses Over the Hills 34,
115, 126, 153, 160, 166–9
Baker, Jane Cooney 7, 72–3, 115 and Ecco 33, 36, 38
Baraka, Amiri see Jones, Leroi and Paget Press 60, 126, 130
Barfly 7, 126, 132, 177 posthumous collections 33, 38,
Barker, David 9 115
Basinski, Michael 52–4, 178 sales 38, 132, 177
Baudelaire, Charles 76, 103 sparrow design 134–5
Beat Generation 16, 23, 26, 76, Blake, William 4
92, 138–9 Blazek, Douglas 8, 20, 37, 116–18,
and Bukowski xx, 1, 6, 23, 101 141, 157, 175
Beatitude 15, 19, 23, 26, 92 Blitz 20, 127, 150
Beiles, Sinclair 102, 157 Blunden, Ron 145
208 INDEX
Bly, Robert 15 censorship

Border 119, 125 Beloit Poetry Journal 78–80
Border Press 119–20 controversial material 1, 44,
Bowart, Walter 21 65, 78, 80, 141, 144, 173
Bowering, George 81 “The Fiend” 162, 164–5
Bowles, Paul 177 “The Hog” 164
Bradbury, Malcolm 127 Earth Rose 81–2
Brookhouser, Frank 59 FBI 84, 146
Bryan, John 34, 83–4, 99, 141–5, “The Genius of the
148–9, 154, 175–6 Crowd” 82–3
The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Mainstream 80–1, 146
Oracle 83, 148 Northwest Review 80–1
Buffington, Mel 150 police raids 81–3
Bukowski, Charles Renaissance. A Magazine of
art the Arts 83–4
cartoons 124–6 Charity Ward episode see
classes 122–3, 125 Bukowski, bleeding ulcer
sparrow drawings 134 incident
Atlanta episode 48, 57, 59, 66–7 correspondence
“the best poet in America” championed by editors 27,
see Bukowski, myths 108, 129–30, 142, 151
bleeding ulcer incident 63–65, unpublished 14, 29, 43, 60,
69 62, 64, 69, 90
bukowskian 5, 149, 154 criticism of 1, 27, 38, 53, 99–100
canceled projects as Dirty Old Man 51, 163
Atomic Scribblings from a as editor
Maniac Age 119–22 Harlequin 30, 71–2, 176
Coercion Review special Laugh Literary and Man
issue 95 the Humping Guns
early selected letters 130 155–7, 176
Existaria special issue 94 Renaissance. A Magazine of
Fly Like a Bat Out of Hell 130 the Arts 83–4, 155–7
joint chapbook with fame, hunger for 1, 9, 38, 67, 87,
Corrington 96, 120 104, 170, 173
Letters to a Young Poet and hippies 144–5, 148
108, 130 influences 6, 23–4, 76
letters to Tom and literary movements 1, 6, 23,
McNamara 129–30 25, 130, 174
“Open Letter” 130 and the littles 40, 60, 87, 101,
A Place to Sleep the Night 112, 142
73, 168 discontented with 28–32, 98
San Francisco Review special discovered in 8–9, 91, 101,
issue 95 111, 127, 132, 141,
The Way the Dead Love 127, 148, 175
135–6, 157, 168 love/hate relationship 24, 28,
career, late 37–8, 176–8 31, 72, 113, 145, 159
INDEX 209
praise for 19, 29–31, 100, 104, prolific nature 23, 36, 38, 47,
106, 112 65, 87, 153
and money 8, 28, 48, 55, 132–3, and carbon copies 39
141, 161, 170 lost poems 38–40
myths most published author of
“the best poet in the 1960s 2, 9, 33, 36,
America” 108–11 87, 173
Harlequin episode 69–70 and rejection 40, 44, 48–9, 72,
no prose written in 1955–64 65, 163–4
74, 98, 117 in the 1940s 47–49
outsider persona 4, 23, 49–54, as editor 72, 156
89, 140, 173 “a little rejection is good for
pro-Nazi letters 4, 44–5, 179 the soul” 41, 49
ten-year-drunk 61–63, 69, reputation 2, 7–8, 103, 108, 110,
71, 179 138, 166, 173
no submissions to Story self-criticism 40, 106–7
after 1944 56, 179 self-interviews 129, 135, 137
and Nazism see Bukowski, myths sex 163, 165
as the new Whitman 132 anal 136, 146, 161
outsider/insider 49–54, 173 pornographic stories 160–5, 173
“Outsider of the Year” award 98, short stories, early
100 unpublished 63
and pedophilia 164–5 as a starving artist 48–9, 57
periodical appearances 7, 99, 131, and suicide 24, 56, 59, 66–7, 144
138, 147, 161, 166, 169 translations 129, 178
as an outlet 1, 23–4, 28, 50, unbukowskian 25, 77, 93, 99
65, 69, 137, 144, 163, 173 upbringing 6
running out of 36, 38 urge to write 3, 10, 33–41, 59,
total number of 33–7, 41, 182 66, 170
perseverance xx, 2, 47, 49, works
53–4, 56 “20 Tanks from
“strange pertinacity” 56, 174 Kasseldown” 56–7, 62
persona xvii, 4, 6–7, 49, 54, 173, Absence of the Hero 162
179 “The Adventures of Clarence
poetry readings 6, 153, 166, 176 Hiram Sweetmeat” 126,
and politics 6, 114, 146 137
Communism 6, 80–1, “Aftermath of a Lengthy
146, 159 Rejection Slip” 40, 44,
popularity 2, 14, 107, 132, 137, 54, 56–7, 60–1
141, 148, 154, 170, 175 “All the Assholes in the World
growing 7, 27, 82, 94, 103, and Mine” 117, 137
112, 141, 159, 174 “American Express, Athens,
and the post office 6, 8, 146, Greece” 139
153–4, 166, 168–9 At Terror Street and Agony
postal authorities Way 126, 133, 148–9,
interviews 145–7 167
210 INDEX
Bukowski, Charles —Continued “Death Sat on My Knee

Atomic Scribblings from a and Cracked with
Maniac Age 5, 119–22, Laughter” 48
127, 136 “dialogues” 91–2, 117, 137
“Beer, Wine, Vodka, Whiskey; “Dirty Old Man” columns 143
Wine, Wine, Wine” 64, Erections, Ejaculations,
69, 165 Exhibitions and General
“The Birth, Life, and Death Tales of Ordinary
of an Underground Madness 9, 109, 113, 129,
Newspaper” 47, 84, 161, 177, 179
141–2, 161 “Export” 25, 99
“The Blanket” see Bukowski, Factotum 7–8, 35, 72, 129
“Murder” “The Fiend” 162, 164–5
The Blue Book 129, 177 Flower, Fist and Bestial
“Bukowski Bitches” 162 Wail 93–7, 100, 118, 149
A Bukowski Sampler 8, 136, “Freedom” 82
151, 153, 157–8, 166 The Genius of the Crowd 82–4
“Bukowski Signature 2” 45, 92 “A Genius on Skid Row”
Bukowskiana 4, 108–9 56, 63
“Cacoethes Scribendi” 60–1 “Hairy Fist Tales” 162
“A Charles Bukowski “Hairy Hairy Fist, and Love
Album” 45, 101 Will Die” 150
“Christ with Barbecue “Hell, Yes, the Hydrogen
Sauce” 161, 165 Bomb” 74
Cold Dogs in the Courtyard 7, “Hey, Ezra, Listen to
97, 116, 118–19, 176 This” 50, 52
“Confessions of a Man Insane “The Hog” 164
Enough to Live with Hot Water Music 154, 179
Beasts” 83, 117, 135 “I Live to Write and Now I’m
“Contemporary Literature, Dying” 48, 57–8
One” 59, 66–7 “I Saw a Tramp Last
“The Copulating Mermaid of Night” 93, 174
Venice, California” 162, It Catches My Heart in Its
164–5 Hands 104–10, 115,
Crucifix in a Deathhand 7, 118, 125, 135, 155
104, 106, 111, 135, working titles 105
149–50, 155 “Kenyon Review, After the
working titles 106 Sandstorm” 24, 50–1
“The Day I Kicked a Bankroll “The Kenyon Review and
Out the Window” 71, 91 Other Matters” 50, 52
“The Days Run Away Like “A Kind, Understanding
Wild Horses Over the Face” 63–4, 122
Hills” 159 “The Laughing Heart”
The Days Run Away Like Wild 32, 178
Horses Over the Hills 34, “Layover” 75
115, 126, 153, 160, 166–9 Letters to a Young Poet 108,
130
INDEX 211
Longshot Pomes for Broke “The Rapist’s Story” 56, 165

Players 75, 94, 96–7, The Roominghouse
100, 118, 125 Madrigals 150, 167
“The Master Plan” 48, 62 Run with the Hunted 53, 89,
“More Notes of a Dirty Old 97, 100, 118
Man” 162 “A Signature of Charles
“Murder” 113, 115, 117, Bukowski” 45, 92
139, 142 South of No North 136,
“My Worst Rejection 156, 179
Slip” 164 “The Tragedy of the
Notes of a Dirty Old Man 35, Leaves” 103, 125
136, 144–5, 153–8, 166 “Treason” 77–8, 131
German edition 110–11, “Trollius and Trellises”
129 126, 132
“Notes of a Dirty Old Man” “True Story” 133, 135
columns 21–2, 35, 84, The Way the Dead Love 127,
137, 141, 143–7, 154, 135–6, 157, 168
159–62 “What a Man I Was” 160, 167
carte blanche for 136, 144 as a young author 46, 49, 51–2,
“Old Man, Dead in a 59
Room” 101, 103, 125 Bukowski, Henry Charles xvii, 46
Penguin Modern Poets 8, 139, Bukowski, Henry Charles
153–5, 157, 166 (father) 59
A Place to Sleep the Night 73, Burnett, Whit 54–7, 61, 72, 112,
168 122, 140, 174
Poems and Drawings 97–9, Burroughs, William 37, 101, 103,
119, 125, 140 110, 140
Poems Written Before Jumping Naked Lunch 15, 79
Out of an 8 Story
Window 129, 148–9, Candid Press 161–2
150–1 Canto 99, 117
“Portions from a Wine-Stained Capote, Truman 55
Notebook” 92 Cardona-Hine, Alvaro 9, 90
Portions from a Wine-Stained Carver, Raymond 176
Notebook 142, 161 Cashin, Jack 131
Post Office 8, 35, 109–10, 129, Castro, Fidel 7, 81
136, 168–9 Caterpillar 16, 131, 160
“The Priest and the Matador” censorship (see also Bukowski,
(broadside) 5, 45 censorship) 78
“The Priest and the Matador” Chicago Review 79
(poem) 103 Poetry 11–12
“A Rambling Essay on Poetics Semina 76
and the Bleeding Life Chatfield, Hale 139, 147
Written While Drinking a Chénetier, Marc 61
Six-Pack (Tall)” 52, 117, Chinaski, Henry xvii, 117
151, 157 Circle 14, 59, 62
212 INDEX
City Lights 92, 109, 137, 154, 161, Double Dealer 11, 17
170, 177–8 Doubleday-Doran 73
Clay, Steven 15 Duncan, Robert 14, 177
Coastlines 27, 31, 89–91, 115
Cocteau, Jean 76 Earth 9, 82
Coercion Review 95 Earth Rose 78, 81–2, 84, 127
Cogswell, Fred 174 East Village Other (EVO) 21–2,
collectors 45, 69, 75, 100, 106–7, 127, 136–7
126, 154 Ecco 33, 36, 38, 175, 178
Committee of Small Magazine Edelson, Morris 20
Editors and Publishers Eigner, Larry 37
(COSMEP) 13 El Corno Emplumado 16, 27,
Compass Review 88, 182 114–15
Conroy, Jack 23, 104, 116 Eliot, T. S. 11, 13–14
The Contemporary Review: A Non- Ellison, Harlan 136
Snob Compilation of Active Eluard, Paul 76
Creativity Now 155 Embryo 65, 68, 70, 73
Coordinating Council of Literary Entrails 28
Magazines (CCLM) 13 Epos 19, 25–6, 31, 89, 98, 140
Copkiller 146–7, 159 Bukowski discovered in 9
Corrington, William 9, 11, 39, 80, Eshleman, Clayton 16, 131, 160
91, 96, 103, 105, 130 Esquire 25–6, 47, 54–5, 59, 65, 74,
“Charles Bukowski and the 110, 177
Savage Surfaces” 81, 91 Essex House 136, 144, 154, 157
Corso, Gregory 103 Europe
Crane, O. W. 72 publications 22, 74, 128, 148,
Creeley, Robert 16, 23, 102, 156, 160 154, 158
Bukowski criticized by xx, 53, 100 reception 127–9, 177
Crews, Judson 24, 36–7, 41, 65, sales 129, 170
68, 74–5, 176 Evanier, David 148
Crosby, Caresse 57–8, 69, 122, 124 Evergreen Review 12, 31, 116,
cummings, e. e. 14, 88, 140 138–43, 161
Cuscaden, R. R. 89, 97–8, 103, Everson, William 14
118–19, 175 Existaria 63, 75, 94, 97
“Charles Bukowski: Poet in a Experiment 29, 65, 68, 99
Ruined Landscape” 103
Fante, John xvii, 4, 177
De Loach, Allen 120, 139 Faulkner, William 11
Decade 31, 59 Federman, Raymond 113
Deep Image poets 16, 130–1, 160 Ferlinghetti, Lawrence 3, 9, 83, 92,
Descant 25, 77, 99 101, 104, 108–9, 136, 138
Di Prima, Diane 15, 20, 98 The Fiddlehead 26, 174
Dorbin, Sanford 12, 68, 83, 91, Fife, Darlene xix, 8, 33, 147, 159
160, 166–9 Finch, Peter 36
bibliography 35–6, 158, 175 Flame 25, 31, 77, 88
Dostoevsky, Fyodor 6, 76 The Flash of Pasadena 151
INDEX 213
Fling 161–2, 165 Hand, Alex 127–8

Floating Bear 15, 20, 140 Harlequin (see also Bukowski,
Flower Power (see also Bukowski, myths) 63, 67–72, 100,
hippies) 6, 144, 148 165, 176, 179
Folder 17, 29 Harper, Carol Ely 45, 73
Folio 65, 68, 70 Harper’s 25–6, 47–8, 54, 59, 65, 87
Forrest, Michael 150 Harrison, Jim 179
Forrey, Robert 80 Harrison, Russell 179
Fowler, John 24 Harrison Street Review 120–2
Fox, Hugh 104, 147, 175 Harter, Christopher 36–7
critical study 158, 175 An Author Index to Little
Frendz 22 Magazines 36
Friedland, Helen 175 Head, Robert xix, 8, 14, 147, 159
Frumkin, Gene 89–90 Healey, Dorothy 6
Fry, Barbara 68, 70–3, 125, 157 Hearse 30, 63, 74, 88, 93–4, 111,
Fuck You (English) 17, 19–20 117, 160
Fuck You (German) 128 Bukowski discovered in 9
Hedley, Leslie Woolf (see also
Galley Sail Review 9, 31, 88, 90–1 Bukowski, myths,
Gallows 89, 159–60 Harlequin episode) 71,
Gallup, Dick 17 78, 80, 102
Genet, Jean 2, 103, 108–11, 175–6 Hemingway, Ernest xvii, 11, 143
Ghost-Dance 147, 158 Hesse, Herman 76
Ginsberg, Allen 101, 104, 115, Hiatt, Ben L. 150
136, 139, 177 High Times 126, 143, 164
Howl 15 Hine, David see Cardona-Hine,
Glenn, Emilie 75 Alvaro
Goodman, Paul 11, 14 Hiner, Jim 70
Grande Ronde Review 20, 99, 150 Hiram Poetry Review 139, 147
Grapes, Marcus 175 Hitchcock, George 19, 88
Griffith, E. V. (see also Bukowski, Hustler 136, 164
works, Flower, Fist and Huxley, Aldous 125
Bestial Wail) 73, 88–9,
93–5, 118–19, 141, Iconolatre 127–8, 136
159–60, 175 Ignatow, David 115
Griffith, Jon 89, 159 Impetus 26, 91
Grist 28, 127 In/Sert 29, 65, 68
Grove Press 138, 154 Inferno 14, 71
Guest, Barbara 138 Ingianni, Ignace 91
Gusher 34, 141 Intransit 115, 148
Gyroscope 18 Intrepid 20, 27, 120, 139, 158
Hackford, Taylor 9, 177 The Jack Kerouac School of

Half Moon 88 Disembodied Poetics 177
Hamsun, Knut xvii, 76 Jeffers, Robinson xvii, 6, 23
Hunger 48 “Hellenistics” 105
214 INDEX
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Levertov, Denise 83, 102

Fellowship 60, 177 levy, d. a. (see also mimeograph
Johnson, Curt 178 revolution) 20, 82–3,
Jones, Leroi 15, 101, 140 85, 116
in Evergreen Review 139–40, as “poeteditorpublisher” 20, 82
144, 147 Leyland, James see Crane, O. W.
journals, academic 2, 11–12, 14, Li Po 24
17, 75, 87, 90 Liddy, James 156
and Bukowski 1, 3, 23, 25–6, Lifshin, Lyn 36–7, 41, 176
31–2, 49, 52, 77, 80 Linick, Anthony 43, 90
Joyce, James 17 Lipton, Lawrence 136
Literary Artpress 91
Katz, Bill 169 literary scene 16–17, 87
Katzman, Allan 137 alternative 1, 8, 20, 27, 82
Kauri 20, 27, 130 and Bukowski 26, 65, 137, 145,
Kaye, Arnold 61, 116 159, 173–4
Kenyon Review 14, 23, 26, 31, Literary Times 61, 89–90, 116–18,
49–50, 52, 54 143, 175
as the enemy 50, 53 The Little Magazine 30
Kepley, Jan 150–1 “Little Magazines in America: A
Kerouac, Jack 92, 102–3, 105, 139 Symposium” 80, 102,
On the Road 15 115, 117
Kerr, Darrell 150–1, 158 The Little Review 17
Kimball, George 24 littles
Klactoveedsedsteen 127–9 definition 11–14
Klein, Philip 134 editorial networks 8, 20–1, 23,
Knight 162, 165 26, 68, 101
Krassner, Paul 21 erotic 28, 161–3, 165
Krim, Seymour 139 as an outlet for Bukowski 12, 24,
Kryss, T. L. 158 28, 65, 69, 100, 173, 179
Kunkin, Arthur 21, 136–7, 142, readership 12, 101, 104, 138
165, 175 and the revolution of
Kuykendall, Mabel M. 87 the 1960s 14–21, 67–8
Locklin, Gerald 8, 52, 66, 133,
Laidig, David 151 144, 176
Lamantia, Philip 154 London Magazine 32, 65
Larsen, Carl 75–6, 94, 96–7, 111, Lorca, Federico García 57
118–19, 175 Los Angeles City College 4, 7, 44,
Laugh Literary and Man the 47, 122–3, 125
Humping Guns 114, 153, Los Angeles Collegian 46–7, 173
155–7, 176 Los Angeles County Museum 59
Laughlin, James 83, 106 Los Angeles Examiner 44, 46, 179
Lawrence, D. H. 133 Los Angeles Free Press (see also
Birds, Beasts and Flowers 93 Kunkin, Arthur) 125–7,
Le Petit Sphinx 26, 181 136, 142–3, 149,
Leary, Timothy 22, 148 165–6, 175
INDEX 215
Los Angeles General Hospital 63 Trace directory 17–18, 25, 68,

Los Angeles Public Library 4, 51 70, 95, 128, 141
Los Angeles Times 108–10, 129, 176 McClure, Michael 81, 83, 101, 177
Los Angeles Weekly 143 McNail, Stanley 9, 90
Los Angeles Weekly News 179 McNamara, Tom 114, 129–30
Loujon Press 99–101, 104, 107, 126 Measure 15
Lowell, Jim 83 Melling, Gerard 145, 148
Lowell, Robert 23 Mencken, H. L. 54, 100, 112
Lowenfels, Walter 80, 102–3, 158 Merkur 128, 158
Merlin’s Magic 19, 26, 91–2
Mackintosh, Graham 150, 167 Mica 113
Mademoiselle 55 Micheline, Jack 84, 176
Maestro Insana’s Review 26, 181 Midwest 89, 98, 113, 117
Mailer, Norman 55 Miles, Barry 44, 179
Mainstream 80–1, 84, 102, Miller, Henry 57, 101, 103–5, 111,
116–17, 146 120, 140
Major, Clarence 38, 95, 100 admiration for Bukowski 107–8,
Malanga, Gerard 114–15, 148, 155 110–11
Malone, Christa 113 Miller, Roy 19, 88, 95, 100
Malone, Marvin 30–1, 75, 80, Mimeo Press 117
112, 175 the mimeograph revolution 1,
and Bukowski 9, 30, 111–13, 141 18–21, 107, 127
editorial guidelines 112 and Bukowski 19–21, 23
Mangelsdorff, Richard 158 mimeos 18, 26, 91–2, 99, 158
Manson, Charles 148 Modernism 14, 17
Margolis, Ken 99 influence of 14, 67
Marrahwannah Quarterly 20, 83, journals influenced by 16, 87
116 second generation of 16
Martin, Barbara 134, 167 Mondragón, Sergio 114
Martin, John 126–7, 132–6, 149, Montag, Tom 11
167, 169, 175, 177 Moray, Joe 59
$100 check for life 84, 168, 170 Moskovitz, Joseph 59–60
and “the best poet in America” Moxie 9, 82
quotation 109–10 Mummy 13, 113
and City Lights 109, 154, 161
and Clayton Eshleman 160 Naked Ear (see also Crews,
discovers Bukowski 8, 132–3 Judson) 24, 31, 68, 70,
on Jean Rikhoff 74 74–5
Martinelli, Sheri 75, 96–7, 99, 125, Bukowski discovered in 9
160 Nash, Jay Robert 11, 108, 116,
Mary Jane Quarterly 83 118, 143, 175
Matrix 56, 59–62, 117, 122, 125 on Bukowski’s popularity 20
May, James Boyer xix, 12, 43, 70, National Endowment for the Arts
78, 85, 104, 138, 142 (NEA) 13, 177
and the Beloit Poetry National Underground
Journal 77–9, 131 Review 143, 148, 160
216 INDEX
Nemerov, Howard 103, 156 Olé (see also Blazek,

The New Critics 14, 51–2, 89 Douglas) xix, 8, 20, 112,
New York Quarterly 30, 175–6 116–17, 157
New York Review of Sex and Bukowski discovered in 9
Politics 22, 161 Bukowski’s praise for 30–1
New York Schools 1, 16–17 Olson, Charles 16, 83, 102, 156, 160
New Yorker 25–6, 47, 54, 59, 65, Open City (see also Bryan, John) 7,
87, 161 140–8, 154, 161–2
newspapers Bukowski discovered in 9
erotic 22–3, 28, 153, 173 Bukowski’s praise for 84
Candid Press 161–2 and Bukowski’s “The Birth . . .” 47,
New York Review of Sex and 84, 141–2, 161
Politics 22, 161 demise of 84, 145, 157, 176
readership 22, 116, 138, 145, Open City Press 83, 142
159, 161 Open Skull Press 117, 137
right-wing 44–5 Oppen, George 16
underground 9, 21–3, 33, 127, Oppen D., June 88
145–8, 159–60, 169 Oppenheimer, Joel 103
Berkeley Barb 21, 137 Origin 14, 16
Berkeley Tribe 35, 159, 161 Orlovitz, Gil 79, 88
East Village Other “Not” 79
(EVO) 21–2, 127, 136–7 Outcast 130, 148
Los Angeles Free Press 125–7, Outcry 13, 113, 115
136, 142–3, 149, The Outsider (see also Webb, Jon and
165–6, 175 Louise) 100–5, 116, 140
National Underground Bukowski discovered in 8, 132
Review 143, 148, 160 Bukowski’s praise for 30–1, 111
Nola Express 35, 106, 147,
159–61 Packard, William 175
Open City 7, 9, 140–8, 154, Padgett, Ron 17
161–2 Parishi, Joseph 32, 54
as politicized 21, 32 Patchen, Kenneth 14, 103–6, 108
Satyrday 22, 148 Penn, Sean 7, 110, 165
Nola Express 35, 106, 147, 159–61 Perkins, Michael 27, 129–30
Nomad 31, 90–1, 117 Perkoff, Stuart 77
Norse, Harold 8, 130, 139–40, Philpot, Wayne 119–20, 122
154–7 Pivot, Bernard 177
Northwest Review 3, 80–1, 84, 91, Pix 9, 90
115 Playboy 161–2, 164–5
Notes from Underground 83, 113, Pleasants, Ben 108–9
117, 141–2, 149 Plymell, Charles 24
Poetry: A Magazine of Verse 3,
Objectivists 16 12–13, 26, 31, 53, 68,
Odyssey 31, 89–90 100, 131
Offen, Ronald 89, 108, 118, 175 Bukowski’s praise for 32, 54
O’Hara, Frank 17 Poetry Newsletter 20, 129
INDEX 217
Poetry Now 88, 94, 160 Sartre, Jean-Paul 2, 57, 108–11,

Poetry X/Change 149, 151 175–6
Pollak, Felix 12, 27, 138 Satis 74, 98, 103, 127–8
Potts, Charles 150–1 Satyrday 22, 148
Pound, Ezra xvii, 2, 6, 14, 17, 23 Scimitar and Song 25–6, 77, 174
Prairie Schooner 3, 13, 31–2 as traditional 92
pseudonyms 9, 37, 157 Screw 22
Purdy, Al 23, 107, 116, 120, 158 Second Aeon 30
Second Coming 30, 175
Quasha, George 131 Selby, Hubert 83
Quicksilver 31, 87, 91, 96, 182 Semina 15, 26, 76–7
Bukowski discovered in 9 7 Poets Press 72, 75–6, 96
Quixote (Edelson) 20 Sewanee Review 14, 31
Quixote (Rikhoff) 31, 68, 74, 127, Shakespeare, William 4
182 Shapiro, Karl 11, 139
Shattuck, Charles 165
Randall, Margaret 102, 114 Sherman, Jory 9, 100, 102, 114
Rechy, John 139 Silver Screen 128, 158
Renaissance 27, 34, 78, 83, 99, Simbolica 19, 25–6, 57, 90, 117
141–2, 149 Singer, James 75–6
Renaissance. A Magazine of the Arts Six Gallery Reading 15
83–4, 119, 125, 145, 155–7 Smith, Gregory 9
Rexroth, Kenneth 14–15, 57, 104 Smith, Marcus 38, 96, 100, 120
and Bukowski 105–6 Some/thing 16, 127, 131
Richmond, Steve 9, 107–8, 156, 158 Sorrentino, Gilbert 80, 83
Earth Books 82 Sounes, Howard 24, 44,
Earth Rose 82 108–9, 168
Hitler Painted Roses 82 Southern, Terry 110
Rikhoff, Jean 74–5, 127 Southern Poetry Review 91
Ristau, Harland 75 Southern Review 14
Rockmore, Noel 107 Spender, Stephen 57
Rolling Stone 103, 110, 177 Spiegel, Der 129
Roman, Jim 56, 69, 135 Stangos, Nikos 8, 139, 154–5
rongWrong 75, 95, 97 Stefanile, Felix 40
Rosenbaum, Jean 130, 148 Stein, Gertrude xvii, 177
Ross, Grace 87 Stepanchev, Stephan 157
Rosset, Barney 138 Stocking, Marion 77–9
Rothenberg, Jerome 16, 130–1, Story (see also Burnett, Whit) 11,
157, 160 54–6, 60, 65, 122, 140, 179
Runcible Spoon 20, 158 Bukowski’s praise for 31, 54, 100
Russell, Bertrand 88, 140 correspondence with 56
editors on Bukowski 61
San Francisco Renaissance 15, 79 “end notes” 55
San Francisco Review 19, 31, 88–9, payment 55
95, 140, 182 prestige 55
Saroyan, William xvii, 55, 88, 140 Sycamore Review 3
218 INDEX
Thomas, John 26, 130, 137, 157, Wanderlust 88, 91

166 Wantling, William 135, 158
and At Terror Street and Agony Warhol, Andy 110, 148
Way 149 Watson, Christopher 143
Thompson, Tracy 102, 113 Webb, Jon and Louise (see also Loujon
Thorne, Evelyn 97–8, 100, 119, Press) 8, 35, 100–12, 116,
140 118–19, 130, 175
as efficient 19, 89, 98 craftsmanship 101, 104, 106
Thurber, James xvii, 122 living conditions 101, 105, 107
Trace (see also May, James publicity campaigns 102–3, 107,
Boyer) 18, 31, 68, 71–2, 110
78, 176 quality standards 101–2
Bukowski’s praise for 68 Weinberg, Jeffrey 126
directory 17–18, 25, 68, 70, 95, Weisburd, Meil 89–90
128, 141 Weissner, Carl 110–11, 116, 127–9,
forum 68, 71 155
Tullos, Will 97, 100, 119, 140 translations 129, 159
as efficient 19, 89 Whalen, Philip 81
Turner, Alan 127 Wheel 26, 181
White Dove Review 17
Underground Digest 143, 146, 148 Wilbur, Richard 23
Underground Press Syndicate Wilcock, John 21, 136–7
(UPS) 22–3, 138, 148 Wild Dog 16, 20
Understatement 13, 27, 114 Williams, Tennessee 139
University of California at Santa Williams, William Carlos 14, 88,
Barbara (UCSB) 133, 105, 140
153, 165–6 World War II 4, 7, 44
Wormwood Review (see also Malone,
Vagabond 9, 128, 158 Marvin) 13, 111–12, 116,
Valéry, Paul 76 158, 175
Van Aelstyn, Edward 24, 81 Bukowski’s appearances in 113
Vangelisti, Paul 114, 157 Bukowski’s praise for 30–1
Vietnam War 6–7, 21 Write; the monthly magazine for
amateur writers 45–6,
Wagner, D. R. 20, 107 54, 62
Waits, Tom 178
Wakoski, Diane 16 Young, Noel 167
Waldman, Anne 177
Walsh, Chad 79 Zahn, Curtis 12, 77, 80, 88
Waluconis, Carl 166 Zukofsky, Louis 16

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American Literature Readings in the 21st Century

Series Editor: Linda Wagner-Martin

American Literature Readings in the 21st Century publishes works by

Published by Palgrave Macmillan:

All rights reserved.

Andrew Monnickendam, for believing wholeheartedly, and lighting a

Linda Bukowski, for opening up the doors of perception.

Charles Bukowski, for showing us all the way.

Excerpt from “Cacoethes Scribendi: A Comprehensive Checklist of

Excerpt from “Reassessing Charles Bukowski’s ‘Kenyon Review,’ After

Excerpt from “A ‘Dirty Old Man’ on Stage: Charles Bukowski and

Previously unpublished material by Charles Bukowski

Excerpt of 20 I. from “The Day I Kicked a Bankroll” from The

Bukowski. © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1988 by Charles Bukowski.

“Contemporary Literature, One” [43 lines] from Dangling in the

Photograph of Charles Bukowski by Mark Hanauer (page 171).

Cover photograph of Charles Bukowski by Till Bartels.

Henry Charles Bukowski Jr.’s nom de plume was Charles Bukowski,

a fully realized yet completely malleable author, malleable in the sense

The phenomena of the post–World-War II little literary magazine

to his small press peers. He was a hostile editor while he coedited

Ineluctable modality of the visible

The Greeks had it best:

Charles Bukowski was a product of the small press movement, an

work” (Andrews 175). Not surprisingly, Bukowski used to compare

When I began my research on Bukowski, the academic interest in his

discussed Bukowskiana at length, a passionate and brutal volume of

I have deliberately kept the sociocultural and literary context to a min-

by current events that when he was accused of having missed the

Arranging as accurately as possible the bio-bibliographical information

On the other hand, as humorously recounted in several short stories

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who released one of the most controversial

short of a feat, especially because it was solely based on Bukowski’s

“Who’s Big in the Littles”

An Outsider Doing His Work

a tendency to backslap and honeycomb, which is weakening,” he said

Indeed, the littles published during the 1940–1969 period experi-

possibly, Bukowski was thinking of the San Francisco Renaissance,

Main periodicals, 1950–70

Graph 1.1 This graph, based on the chronological timeline designed by

Bukowski’s periodical appearances, 1950–69

While the Modernism-influenced journals were being displaced by

Trace’s total number of periodicals, 1952–70

in the 1970 directory is simply astounding as the great majority were

The Mimeograph Revolution

mimeo. J (1959) and Beatitude (1959) were equally mimeographed,

Bukowski” (30). Bukowski had laboriously fought his way through

The large circulation figures helped—considerably so—to spread

Despite the exposure received in the literary magazines that flour-

praised them, such as “Kenyon Review, After the Sandstorm.” In fact,

Literary Magazines: “A Living and

During the 1950s, Bukowski was painfully aware of the crucial

[T]hen the kelp, bitumen, alabaster, seashells

Likewise, Bukowski stated in several letters that most of the poems

but important, off-set, hand-set, and nowadays mimeographed, avant

poetry or fiction. As Grist coeditor reminisced, “[H]is name already

[Literary magazines] are a scurvy lot, most of them, run by homo-

he committed the same editorial sin—that of returning previously

published Bukowski in almost every Wormwood Review issue from

magazine or not. More than three decades later, he still considered

They’ve [underground newspapers] turned into business, and the real

In a 1973 letter to Darlene Fife, coeditor of Nola Express, he further

The Urge to Write